 | | |
| | |
|
Spaces home  Next DimensionPhotosProfileFriends |  Tools   |
|
|
June 17 A Bar Bouncer's Words of Wisdom on Boldness and DumbnessThis weekend was great. I explored a couple of pubs in the downtown area. And I saw someone
getting bounced by a bouncer. In super civilized Seattle this is a rare ( and a pretty entertaining sight ).
If I were a barman what would I advise the guy who wanted to prove how tought he is by fighting
with the doorman ?
It was the first time I was seeing this and all these thoughts came into my head as I watched the
free show. Ah, if only I had seen this a few weeks before and had given my words of wisdom to
one of my very best friends who ended up losing a couple of thousand bucks to bail himself
from the cops' clutches for the very same reason ...
My sympathies were surely with him. But then maybe if I were a patron at the pub, I wouldn't like my Friday night fun coming to an abrupt end as a driven-out-customer. And of course, if I were to be the bouncer, who wouldn't like to have some fun ? March 31 Bangalore no more : What's in a name - a lot at timesMy seemingly endless non-stop 14 hour flight from New York to Mumbai was coming to an end.
For the entire flight, I hadn't even cared to glaze into the digital GPS screen to know where
exactly the flight was. Because when you're on a 14 hour flight, most of the time you're still
thousands of miles away from where you want to be. But now that I knew that it'd be touchdown
soon I couldn't have been more excited to see my plane zoom into the destination on the GPS
Screen. But when I looked into the screen, what I saw , didn't make me happy at all. And it was
nothing related to the flight or its landing.
For, what I saw on the screen, was another ridiculous instance of 'rebranding' staring in my face.
Bombay to Mumbai. Madras to Chennai. Kolkata to Calcutta. And now ... Bengaluru.
So, here was India's map staring at my face, with something missing & replaced , and that
something had pretty much got India onto the Worldmap in the first place, the recognition of
Technological power and education - and finally a reason for us to be known as something
beyond a cowshed. Bangalore was gone.
I think the immediate fuel for my irritation was the fact, that just a couple of days ago,
I was riding in a Bus in Seattle - half a planet away from umm .. Bangalore ... and a few
passengers and the bus driver, started asking me stuff about Bangalore, the tech companies
over there,and why I'd still need to go outside my country to work. It made me quite happy.
After years, there was finally a brand name which India had contributed to the world.
Make no mistake about it. Bangalore as a brand is something positive, the very fact that
companies like Google,Microsoft,Yahoo--all have R&D offices over there is something to
be proud of. But Bangalore as a city -- the government doesn't seem to have anything
better to do with taxpayers wealth other than the latest mission they've embarked on -
repainting all sign boards to Bengaluru . Building roads, infrastructure, airports -- seems
to be nowhere on the checklist.
Bangalore was harldy known by the world for being an Indian city established by the Brits.
It was known as an Indian tech hub. This seems to be entirely misplaced wave of nationalism,
to restore the 'past glory' of the 'local people'. Something way more constructive would be,
to build a new city called Bengaluru right from scratch and try to make it an even bigger
brand than the existing Banglore.
Another 'renaming' which amuses me is the renaming of Victoria Terminus to
Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus. The victorian architecture, arches and the general
ambiance of the place hardly make it feel like the great Maratha legacy. A more
constructive approach would have been to create a new railway station and name
it CST. Mumbai is a city of 17+ million people, and there's not a single major
railway station over here which wasn't built by the Britishers. It could do with
a lot more 20 platform Railway terminuses.
Construction , building , rebuilding ... these should be in the agenda of action.
But Renaming ? Are we battling with History ? Or do we really get something
in this 'conquest' of planting a flag on our own land ?
And if you're a software engineer from Bangalore, do you feel the way I do.
Feel free to leave a comment, I'm just curious to people's reaction to this.
The pic, I know is fuzzy. But that's the best I could click in a hurry :)
March 15 In memory of the forgotten ....
After an unusually bright and cheerful forntnight with the Sun smiling from above, the clouds of Redmond decided to get out of hibernation and made a switchback from slumber to thunder. So on Friday, I got up to see the usual overcast skies without the smallest crack in sight to let a single sunray bless the place. Now overcast skies are something I have kind of learnt to live with, so thats nothing unusual. Yeah its a bit irritating to get wet and get your shoes mucky early in the morning, but anyway, I dragged myself to office. It turned out to be a nice day. Another Friday. Another Party at office. This time the party was a very REAL party. There were more than a 100 people around and much noisier and merrier than the last few parties. Lots and lots of beer. Now when you drink, you think. And I entered the party when I was sober enough to really appreciate and enjoy the conversation of the drunk.
And on a rainy day with not a single ray of sunlight to disrupt their flight, where were the Vampires ? The poor things collapse in Sunlight, why didn't they immigrate from Transylvania to the Seattle area ? At least they could enjoy Daytime and actually see something without having to battle with the Sun. And Seattle - the city, the people - seem to be very warm,polite and welcoming to people from all over the world ; I'm sure the welcome would extend to those from another LifeZone . They are truly forgotten heroes. They make more interesting subjects of movies than most moviestars do and yet never show their face. And in fact, I think there are more movies about Vampires than heroes. Oh how I wish you were here ......
March 11 The Next BRICThe BRIC Acronym is something which I've been constantly hearing for the past five months from
the perspecitve of software sales expanding in the BRIC Nations - Brazil,Russia,India and China.
I did know about this acronym ( for maybe the last couple of years ) but had never paid much
the deeper implications of it. I did some research on it for a while and found information about
the BRIC idea quite interesting (and encouraging , specially to me , being from the I of the BRIC ).
For those who are curious about the BRIC idea, here is a link to info right from the horse's mouth:
This is a Goldman Sachs report first published in 2003 which identifies the 4 nations as fast growing
economies, and their combined GDP will exceed that of the G6 nations by 2050. This report is turning
out to be the basis for large Multinationals in determining their sales and marketing policy in emerging
markets ( this is something which I can see and understand first hand ). What I found most
encouraging was a 2007 followup of the paper which re-evaluates India's growth potential and
corrects it to a value higher than what was initially forecasted. The two reports put together,
made me wonder where India would have been had we been freed from the cage of communism
couple of decaded earlier.
On a self-critical note I wonder how I ended up missing the deeper details behind this acronym.
Last, I worked at the office of a famous investment bank, and in India itself ( the I of the BRIC).
I was working as a developer, and maybe I was just too busy churing out programs faster than
a typewriter, to go and do my own study in the principles of economics and finance from a broader
perspective ? Or maybe I wasn't reading the newspaper enough.
Googling for BRIC shows it as an acronym in widespread use amongst modern day economists,
as well as the sales and marketing teams of major corporations. This seems to be international
economic reality as important as it can get, to anyone from the South-asia subcontient.
And I became more aware of this after coming half-way across the planet, and after leaving
a financial powerhouse. Hmm. Maybe I should try to keep my eyes not just on Google News
but also on the Bloomberg news channel to get a better idea of what's going on in the world.
On a positive note, I feel happy about the fact that I took up a job and worked in India
immediately after my undergrad instead of heading straight to the US for a Masters degree
or a Job. I have interacted with Indians in US who headed here for their Masters immediately
after their undegrad and started working here without ever having worked in India. While most
of them do have half a mind about returning at some point of time in the undefined future,
they end up wondering about whether they would ever be able to survive back in India,
or whether they would be able to a job which could use their education and skills.
After working in India ( I can only speak for the tech industry ) I could see for myself that
the skillset and education level required for jobs is pretty much the same on both sides of
the Atlantic. And okay, while life may not be as cozy and calm as in a place like Redmond,
people who are unsure whether they'll be able to 'survive back home' are, in my honest
opion, nothing but absolute weaklings with nothing to be proud of if they're unsure of
their ability to survive in the place where they spent the first 20 years of life.
Also, its an exciting time to work in India, and the aggressiveness, zeal and level of ambition
you get to see in the workplace ( which gets captured in the overall economic growth )
is something you might probably not see any where else. If you've just finished your
BTech and are pondering over whether to accept an admission for a Masters or a good
job in India I'd not think twice before advising you to chuck your admit :)
I think I've deviated significantly from the topic I started off with - but now coming back
to one of the statements made by Jim O' Neill - the economist to whom the BRIC report
owes its existance is - Its important to realize that we ( people from different nations )
are all different - and we don't have to be like each other. How true. I've seen people
from the sub-continent who've come here and changed their accents, their way of living ,
basic preferences etc. in a desperate attempt towards cultural assimilation and
success without the basic understanding that such exterior transformations are meaningless
and not required. If more people realized this statement neither would anyone require
drastic cultural transformation, nor would people face a sudden culture shock on arriving
in a different land.
Anyways, [yawn] ... enough thoughts for the day .. time for me to sleep I guess .. zzzz....
March 10 My Latest Aquisition ... No not Yahoo :)Its one of those times when I feel the urge to buy something and I do. This wasn't *THAT* hasty a purchase though its something I had in
mind for a long while and I finally went and bought it - a brand new bicycle which I can use around my home or on bike trails and paths
which are in plently in the Redmond/Seattle area. Two months ago I had this urge to buy umm something bigger -- a car -- but good luck
prevailed and the sheer paperwork required to purchase a car ( which is something I really don't seem to require in Redmond ) turned
out to be better for my bank balance. I had a rented car for more than a month and after a few weeks of zapping up and down on the
freeway from Redmond to Seattle ( and a few aimless rides into the hills ) the excitement soon died out and it doesn't seem to be
worthwhile to buy at least for a while.
So here is my bike.
So this is my latest 'aquisition'.
I took it on one of the trails quite close to where I stay, and it was quite an interesting cycle ride. For one,
I was riding a bike after ages. Next, it took me a while to figure out which of its 21 gears I should be using
at any point of time. Third, it gave me a much more interesting view of Redmond than the cut and paste
repetitiveness of the surroundings which blaze past me during car/bus rides on the freeways.
March 07 Find a Reason to Sue : The European Union's Business ModelBecome Rich. And Famous. By Suing the really famous.
That seem's to be the European Union's latest mantra. I'm talking about the billions of dollars of fines which
they've been slapping on <u-know-who>... for ... oh my god they've kept their client server communication
protocols a secret ! Oww .. even worse ... u've overcharged your rival .... Oh... wait ... gimme a while..
let me try to think of some other valid wailing ... to make money from those who do !
They're smart. They have a pretty diversified business model for sure.
Microsoft, Google , Intel --- everyone seems to have offended them and caused them immense pain
worth billions. I find it hard to think of any significant software coming from Europe and I'm
sure most of the EU guys found and communicated their shocking findings by Googling for information
and then sending mails thru Intenet Explorer on their Windows Enabled PC's with Intel core duos..
What I find ridiculous :
1) Microsoft fined for overcharging rivals - Well the EU shouldn't even pretend to be shedding crocodile
tears for the poor rivals when obviously its sole intention is to milk every single cash cow in sight to
secure salaries and pensions for the grumpy old foggy headed people @eu.
2) Trying to obstruct the Google - DoubleClick deal - Are the EU Guys desperate for limelight ?
Is their ratification even needed on an aquisition where neither of the companies are European ? March 06 TechFest - This time at MicrosoftIf you've been following my blog for a while you've probably figured out something - I'm pretty much
excited about technology and the wonders it can do for the world.
What's going on currently - and I'm really happy to be witnessing this in real life - is the Microsoft
TechFest - where Microsoft Research displays the stuff going on inside their labs and the inventions
they've come up with. Much of this is done with the intention of bringing to the attention of the
product teams something which they might like to bring out into the real world. Yes, certainly there
is a disconnect between real software ( the one we find in the commercial world) and what goes on
in Research , but it is great to see what the future of computing might have in store for us. Yeah,
I know cool things generally don't sell unless you're Steve Jobs. But what the heck. They're still
cool.
And what better than to see the possibly cool future at the Microsoft Redmond campus.
I saw a couple of facinating things. Underwater sensor networks, Graph Theory research and its
application in so many things which have changed our lives today - Something which hooks many
of hours for hours at a stretch aimlessly - social networking ( After seeing what this kind of addiction
did to many people I knew in college I pretty much question the benefits of this at times given
the self-destruction it drives good intelligent students to but I guess thats besides the point for now.)
I also saw a friend (batchmate of mine from IIT, you can read his words of wisdom here :
http://kpowerinfinity.blogspot.com/ ) demostrate something which might make the life of developers
much better in the future with a much more intelligent Product Studio.
UI,Graphics,Media,Theory ... there were amazing demos of everything ... much of which ... I couldn't
comprehend due to to the sheer complexity of the topics ... but anyways, it was really cool watching
all the stuff.
Being present in the TechFest also reminded me of days not-too-many-years-ago where I had felt
a similar kind of enthusiasm. Days because of which I was probably here, at the Microsoft TechFest.
Those were the TechFests back when I was in college. TechFests where I was nothing more than
an excitable teenager, starting to have fun with code. College TechFests where the stuff around
me was (obviously) not so technically advanced - but still got me excited.
To be honest, it was the programming competitions & TechFests at IIT which motivated me towards
a tech career, and prevented the engineer in me from dropping dead from the sheer boredom of
what the academic curriculum had in store. There were things other than programming which
I had always wanted to do but never ended up doing due to laziness .. like building a micromouse
or a robotic car with vision.
And so, standing here at the Microsoft TechFest - my mind went back to my college TechFest thinking
of the other stuff which I could've done. And then I remembered that this is the time when the
KGP Techfest used to be. And all of a sudden, for no real reason - For a while - only for a while -
I missed being there.
February 25 Seattle and my DigitalizationIt exactly 5 months since I arrived in Seattle. The 'touch-down' to this new phase of life was on a cloudy,misty runway on (just another of) Seattle's rainy days.
Looking outside the window, I could still feel as if I was in the clouds. Only when I felt the bump when the landing gear shot out, did I realize - Seattle here am
I :) As I got of the airplane, my spirits became as damp as the runway for a while. But only for a while. As I sped in a taxi from the Sea-Tac airport to Redmond,
it became obvious that the North-West area was certainly the closest one could get to heaven-on-earth. The Mountains. The Water. Maybe a bit TOO serene.
Everyone was sooo polite. I had visited the US before (the south) but it was nothing like this. But anyways, the mountains are really pretty anywhere on the planet.
I think the biggest shocker (nice shock) for me was, when I visited the Microsoft HQ Campus for the first time on 28th Sep. What seems just like another day to day office seemed so unreal for the first time. What struck me most was the realization that I had entered a Truly Digitalized Domain. It was a nice shock. I love the digital world. This was a territory of broad band wifi everywhere, most of the people I saw were communicating with their electronic-friends ( laptops,IPods..oops Zune, PDAs), and there were XBOX Banners too. Every taxi or shuttle driver was obeying the voice of an 'invisible-lady' in the GPRS. There seems to be a negative
side to this too ... most drivers in Seattle would bang into the wall if their GPRS told them to do so. The shuttle was great too. Eco friendly, and a very interesting set of electonic controls. I was very satisfied with the environment. At least, it seemed to fall in place with my idea of what the world should be like. For, according to me, Digitalization is the next step in Human Evolution. After years of people arround me calling me geek/nerd/computer addict, finally here I was in a society where this was the way to be. I haven't been called by any of those names in the past five months. I really do not see what is so unsocial if I communicate with a keyboard.
I think of myself as more evolved.
The even better part was, that the 'Corporate Headquarters' had hardly a corporate touch to it - it feels more like a sprawling college campus, and anywhere within 20 miles radius of Microsoft, I feel pretty much 'within the Kingdom', and very safe and secure ... my wallet feels that way too, specially with the Microsoft Passport which
gets me free entries to so many museums, discounts on Electronics, restraunts and so much stuff. In fact I guess I was a lesser-geek over here. I didn't carry laptops
into meetings. Also, Everyone in the region seems to dig Technology. Right from any store-keeper or young kid , so many people tech-talk to me.
Seattle is undoubtedly a city of the mind. A ride in a wifi bus will tell u that.
The past five months have flown by with me adjusting more and more to this place and I don't know how I could ever step out of it.
Firstly, its a SMALL town ( life is more like it was in Meerut than in Mumbai) ... open areas , dark and lonely streets . After many slips
and falls, I have finally learnt to skate a bit :) Pubs and bars are - well pretty much the same like in Mumbai.
On the social front, its been absolutely great to meet & exachange ideas with so many enthusiastic geeks.
What I miss sometimes in Redmond: Noise, traffic ,honking ... yup it kept me awake in Mumbai ... and its absence can scare me now
School friends ... and some from college too ... to get drunk with
The URGE to drink ... I feel wierd saying this, whats happening to me ... I Just don't feel the need to drink any more, even when
I have so many ppl & old friends I know around me
And of course home & everyone there & the fact that I'm no longer able to just fly home on the weekends.
What I didn't have back in Mumbai: Broadband wireless internet everywhere, a license (Microsoft Passport) to buy a whole lot of my beloved
electronics much cheaper, People who DIDN't call me a geek, a job in a Company which seemed to have a comforting invisible presence
for miles around it :) and a large Area for first-experiment-with-rollerblades. ( I live rite next to the Bus Park now).
My life has become less 'hectic' but I'm much busier. Its kind of tough to explain this. So much mundane stuff can be done with a single click.
I get enough time to read,draw and write absolutely random stuff (like what you're reading). I get home before the sun sets (nowadays).
I get enough time to drag myself to the Proclub to burn out my chocolate intake. And, whats most import to me and my battleplan for
the conquer of every single pixel of the digital world, I get time and encouragement from others to Code for Fun.
February 23 Others are to be seen and heard NOT obeyed .... :)This is something which I've had in my mind for a long long time, but I never really put into words.
The whole idea of an Indivdual maintaining Individuality. This might seem the start of a rather
ridiculous rambling to you, but its not .... it wasn't for me.
I'm writing about this because as I look around me and see products...electronics, computers, books,
video games, skateboard art -- if there's anything which looks appealing, seems interesting, its
because someone had an idea, worked on it - for the sheer joy of seeing his idea come out to the
world and taking a risk - who know if it'll sell or not ? The point is, that while u'r working on some
really great idea, at least for a while, u couldn't really care whether its going to make money or not,
ur just creating something.
Having said that I go back to my entrance examination days at IIT. After 2 years of slogging, I ended
up with a poison pill rank at the JEE - 1987 - which was nothing which could fetch me a branch of my
choice at IIT (Computer Science, all the rest - I cared a hoot about), and at the same time, it was,
well, at least an entry ticket into IIT. There was an MSc Maths & Scientific Computing course at IIT
Kanpur and I was hell bent on filling it up ( I Definitely did not want to be just any engineer - only
a computer engineer) - but I made the mistake of listening to adults for whom --- arre MSc is Not
engineering - and opted for a 5yr course in Metallurgy in Kharagpur. To be honest, even today I
find it hard to explain to myself WHY I did that, I should've filled any random BTech course -at least it
would have ensure a year less of an ordeal - maybe I was so damn disinterested in the post-JEE
counselling that I just didn't care. This was one of the few occasions when I listened to
'someone's advice' , and it taught me a lifelong lesson of NOT to listen to anybody ever again.
During my preparation for the IIT JEE, the subject I hated and could never get myself to study it
- was Chemistry. Because it seemed repulsive. And teenage rebelliousness only drove me to
hate it even more. Because I disliked it. And because it didn't fit into my long term life plan at
all. (Its not as if I just disliked anythin-not-related-to-Computers, I remember liking English
Literature a lot in Class 12).
Soon, I find myself at IIT-KGP, dumped with a bunch of Chemistry notes (that was our first class )
and one look at the metallurgical engineering syllabus and the Thermodynamic Equations with
which I had got into a forced arranged marriage kind of situation which was enough to teach me
to follow my own heart for the rest of my life. But this feeling sort of drove me to a self destructive
mode where I didn't even want to get anything more than a Six-Pointer GPA. I think it was by
far the most un-ambitious year of my life. But the feeling of being trapped can drive me nuts.
I decided to give JEE again. Not that I was under the illusion that I'd get a marvellous JEE rank
or something like that. My hate for Chem was worse than ever now, and there's a limit to how far
u can go with that kind of a hatred for a subject. But I just BADLY wanted to start my life all over
again.
I got pretty much the same ranks at both the Screening and the Mains ( 3000+ and then 1877 ).
Okay I didn't want to go back to KGP .. wanted to go to a Metro IIT. I was hell bent on taking
MSc Mathematics And Computing (I know it sounds mad I thought so too --- 6 years in IIT,
that too in KGP ? ) But it was the only subject close to what I wanted to study.
This time, I got an even bigger dose of unsolicited advice - most ppl thought I was crazy.
Specially adults. But I was pretty conviced that this was a pretty okay thing to do --- I'd pass
out of IIT at 23 years of age -- that wouldn't be too bad -- AND most importantly I'd have
somethin which fit into my line of interest. Need I step into some1 elses shoes all the time?
Couldn't I just work on what I liked? Should I be having to explain decisions like this to the
'older-n-wiser' ( my foot) ? By then I had figured out that a) interfering in other ppl's decisions
b) Just assuming that u have to conform with some 'socially-accepted' career choices ... these
were so badly ingrained in our society - that advisors ( Specially adults) were best seen
and maybe heard - but NOT followed. I can think of only 2-3 school friends of mine who could
understand this seemingly random decision I had made. No one else at IIT could understand
what I had done -- aisa kyo kiya, what r u going to get out of it. I think its just nothing but
sad that even the so called 'best n brightest' of the country had no idea of what they wanted
to do , other than trodding the most secure risk averse path in sight.
I stopped communicating with most of the ppl I knew, since I saw no reason to be handing out
explanations to every1 for something which was a personal preference of mine. I just went around
doing what I liked, learning about programming , algorithms, graphics and it was fun. At the end
of the first year I moved to Energy Engineering ( well -- it was a 4 year course -- and under the
Electrical Sciences division in IIT Kharagpur u can do many interesting courses in Image,Signal
Processing , Electronics , programming courses -- and within the limits of my CGPA could fetch
me it was a great option. Of course, I had ZILCH interest in the ENERGY component -- but fortunately
that was very little. )
Something which I really appreciate about Kharagpur was the Minor system.
The course curriculum was extremely flexible. I did a whole lot of interesting courses in the CS
department. If any Kgpian is reading this and ur passionate about learning something ur interested
in - go ahead n enroll for additional coursework in it. It's not about being a mugger or overly-scholastic
or anything like that. Just remember that a degree gives u an opportunity to pretty much indulge in
yourself. You won't really realize this while in college. When you take up a job - you're pretty much
another brick in the wall. And not everybody is inclined or motivated to spend half a decade of their
life in research so make the best use of the 4 yrs.
Anyways - back to how this transformed My life - after a looong loong time ( JEE , first year +
a whole lot of ridiculous courses which I hated ) I actually regained my confidence. There were
finally courses in which I could get A's and Ex's. There were courses where I actually enjoyed the
lab. Not just that, I enjoyed making other people's lab assignments.
December 2005 - here came another crucial juncture - its time to get a job - Placements Commence.
And at the same time - here comes another hurdle of the assumption that u just HAVE to fit into
a stereotype. It was the assumption that u MUST have a CS Major degree to be permitted to
interview for companies like Microsoft & Google. I might sound rather harsh when I say this but
maybe this kind of attitude prevents a whole lot of innovation from coming out of India.
There was a meeting which we had just before placements- I stood up and asked 'Can I submit
my resume for core CS companies - I've got a minor ... ?'. And then came the answer ( which I
was expecting ) 'Son a minor is a minor .... ' . And well, even most students seemed to agree
and were quite amused that I had asked such a question ( I got sufficient feedback for this...).
I decided not to be stupid enough to pay attention to public opinion and submitted my resume
online to all the major Software companies .
The point I'm trying to make over here ... is NOT the jobs I ultimately ended up getting ....
I could've very well steered my career into the wall given the random drops in my GPA ....
its just that ... should it be so hard for some1 to just explore himself and do what he/she likes ???
February 21 Communism, Capitalism and the World ...Recently I picked up 'The World is Flat' by Friedman. Its about how he visits China , India and writes about how globalization is making different parts of the world pretty much similar. My concentration for some reason doesn't seem to permit me to read for more than 50 pages at a stretch - anyways most significant amongst the statments I read was : "Communism makes everybody equally poor." . And (with the little I have seen of Communism vs Capitalism) I remember West Bengal - every single time I arrived at Calcutta Railway Station, I saw a red flagged procession, and almost every part of the city was pretty much a wrecked, ramshackled place where every singe thing seemed to have entered a state of decay. West Bengal and its love for China, Russia and the inspiration it drew from them had made a conscious choice to remain detached from all economic progress. Contrast this with other areas in North,South and Western India. True, there is poverty in these places too, and the problems solved so far is far outnumbered by the problems they still face. But you can see the sheer energy there, in the form of IT Companies,Call centres offices n all. And I'm sure it trickles down to others too, given the number of hawkers , restraunts and other small businesses which develop around the bigger ones. Certainly there is a disparity which can't be ignored, but then, wealth needs to be created before it can be spread. So the great hub of communism, West Bengal, has pretty much no future. To be honest people in that region seemed pretty non enterprising and lazy and maybe communism is an easy crutch for such people.
Now coming to the Flattening ,, when I think of my workplace at Mumbai vs Microsoft, I can hardly think of a difference - the technology,infrastructure,communication etc.
Well true - I'm just talking about the Workplace at Mumbai - not mumbai as a city - the slums,the garbage etc. But the point is that at least such workplaces existed.
When I think of Bengal - except for my beloved Alma Mater- I find it hard to think of Bengal as anything but a big potholed ruin. And for the Cruel,Capitalistic society (as communists like to think of it) .... most corporations have huge giving campaigns,charitable functionaries etc and do way more for the world than communists ever will.
February 11 A Tech Environment vs an Inv.BankThis was a comparision which was long due. Diplomacy forbade me from writing this for a while, but now I feel its long due.
My first job afer passing out of college was as an Analytics Developer at Lehman Brothers in Mumbai. Okay, the software I
was developing was for NY/London, but I pretty much got a feel of what an investment bank was about.
The job and the experience, pretty much lived upto expectations on the whole. Lehman was a professionally run organization.
there were smart and ambitious people all around and *think* I learnt enough about how to develop the design of software
which is essential for the running of a big business. While the nature of the job lacked technical depth, it gave me a kind of
broad insight into technolgies available and currently in use - web services, real time messaging systems,databases,scripting
and even UI which I pretty much hate :) Apart from that it gave me an exposure to the basics of finance/economics. Much
as I'm not very interested in these fields, I did manage to get the jist of it, more importantly from my own Portfolio's point of
view, and to be honest this knowledge was an essential addition to my almost purely-tech education.
In October 2007 I joined Microsoft. In a way, the job as such hardly changes- its a JOB after all. The attitude of the people was
what mattered most. I can't help making comparisons between my current env. and the previous one.
Well, my observations are here. Okay, it may be much easier to become a millionaire at an i-bank.
( Though I really doubt even that given the credit turmoil.) But I'd really not want to go to that kind of environment again.
There was a silly air of pretence at Lehman with people acting way more corporate than they needed to be, making fancy
conversation etc., pretending that it was beneath their dignity to code, and of course the fanciest people were those trying
to work their way to Ferraris, and had mastered the art of making their spreadsheet copy and paste sound like research
of a rocket science complexity. People were busy behaving as if they were rubbing shoulders with CEOs in the board rooms.
If you'd go to a bar or restraunt and a 'bro' happened to be there, there was bound to be a loud discussion about the latest
mereger or aquisition or some random stock price, in a voice loud enough to let every1 in 100m radius realize the fact that
he was honored of being in the vicinity of the 'financially'-literate.
I cannot imagine heading back to an environment like that . There was more than a tinge of coporateness in everything, even
a daaru party. Also, there were way too many people to be regularly reported to, emails were spell checked and formatted to perfection, and just way too formal. Clients had to be replied to at once,with 'Dear XYZ...' 'Chocolate at my desk<eom>'
was about as casual as things got.
Now I almost feel I'm back to college mode :) The beer parties, general freedom and casual environment, not havin to think
twice before dropping the f*** word . Though for some wierd reason I no longer feel like drinking at all ! Oh , well ....
Also, my mind works better in T-shirts and sneakers :)
February 02 If only I could turn back time ...I would head to the instant just before the New York Stock Exchange closing bell rang on Thursday the 31st of Jan 2008 , and buy some Yahoo stock !
It was a surprise for me as I saw the early morning news flash and email about the 44.6 Billion being waved to Yahoo to get themselves sold .
It was an even bigger shock as I saw the trading prices of Yahoo tick northwards by the second and by midday (Friday) it was selling a good 50%
above the previous day's close. My infatuation for my precious internet stock portfolio (which was Yahooless) and my gratitude to them vanished
immediately .. yeh dil maange more :) When I was plannin my stock purchases .. who the hell would have thought of this sinking ship, just another
dot-gone to be company, the last of the dot com giants, eaten by the big bad GOOG . Well , the ship sank on top of a sunken treasure chest.
Good for Microsoft. But it will reduce some of the small little joys which I get in navigating to mail.yahoo.com just for the sake of entering a different
digital territory :)
For those who missed the boat to billionairedom and have yet to realize it:
YHOO, NYSE Closing Price on Thursday , $19
YHOO, NYSE Closing Price on Friday , $29
February 01 C# turns out to be coolWhen I was in college, one of the things I did with great enthusiasm was to pick up Core Java , through my own pet projects and programs.
In many ways it was really a foundation layer of what was to become my career & a cool intro the real world of software engineering . It
was object oriented, it was easy to come up with UI using Swing , and I didn't have to scratch my head too much for pointers . I had written
a lot of standalone C++ programs, but the thought of coming up with some worthwhile software in the unmanaged realm of C++ is something
have yet to burn my fingers with. Java, with its JVM-managed-show, its easy to pinpoint errors by trailing thru the stacktraces . But for things
I love most, anything computationally intensive like image manipulation or anything intensive in number crunching, it just fails horribly when
it comes to speed. I'm not throwing out statistics in the milliseconds here because I've never really got to measuring that far, the time lag is
perveivably in seconds and even minutes - for image manipulation. I last worked in the software division of an investment bank, where a lot
of calculation intensive code was actually written in Java, and a lot of time was spent in trying to 'reduce latency' and reduce the time taken
for calculations. Maybe a lot of the problems could have been solved by not using Java. Even though it has been a kind of first love for me
over the last couple of years .
Anyways now coming to C# - I had get myself to learn it now that I was at Microsoft. Syntactically it was very similar to Java, so it didn't come
as a total shock to me. But I think the best thing was that I could really put to use the unsafe code structure for running things in an unmanaged
native environment with basic knowledge of pointers from C. So for boring things like UI stuff - I can normal C# Code , but wherever I need low
level access I just use unsafe code! Images which can't be processed in less than say 10 secs in Java can now be processed in the order of 100
milliseconds or so which is just great. When it comes to an image manipulation , even a 1024x640 image requires that many transitions between
the managed environment and native code, which obviously takes a lot of time. Moral of the story : C# trurns out to be just great for me ->
don't need to make a transition to C++ altogether and I get the best of the both the worlds of Java and C ! December 10 The Museum of FlightThis was a trip which was long due. And a ' homage ' which just had to be paid. For here I had been in Seattle for more than 2 months now, and the least I could do was
to visit the Boeing Field/Museum of Flight to acknowledge the invention thanks to which I could be here, so many thousands of miles away from home - the airplane.
Its amazing to see the evolution of the modern day jetliner. Right from the bicycle-plane of the Wright brothers to the Propeller planes , and then to the Jumbo Jet and finally the supersonic Concorde. Every time a new model of an airplane is rolled out its a wonder in itself. And a trip to the museum made me realize it.
Take for instance the 777. While flying to Seattle from Bombay, the first aircraft I boarded was an A300, the next ( for the trans-pacific trip) was a 777. All this while
I had hardly paid any attention to it and the uniqueness which had gone into its making. Yeah, it was just another twinjet aircraft , pretty big , that was it. All of a sudden
there was a whole lot more to it. It was the first aircraft to be designed purely on Computer using CAD/CAM provided by IBM. The first paperless-ly designed aircraft.
Which brings me back to my thoughts on what computing has done and what it could still do but that is another story altogether.
The first 747 - I have seen so many 747s and even travelled on them, but there was a special meaning in knowing that I was seeing the first 747. An aircraft which transformed peoples live,careers and probably entire cultures even maybe. An aircraft which dominates the concourses of every major international airport. Only when
you pick up the book '747' can you realize the pains which went into its making.
The concorde - this looks way too slender & smart , it was an absolute wonder of technolgy and its sad that it had to be put out of service.
But somehow I felt a sense of far greater awe for the 747 since its made a much more visible impact on our lives today. And even as I make this statement there must be thousands of it up in the skies carrying people and cargo between nations and continents ; agents of a different kind of a world wide web which brought the world togther even when the Internet wasn't there .
December 05 Real world consequences of Software behaving smarter than it needs to ....When I moved from India to US in Late Septermber 2007, I wanted to have my cell phone connection working till the last day, so I thought I'd reach Seattle , login to my
online phone account, pay the last bill and apply for a disconnection.
When I did try to access my account, I tried an incorrect password, and before I knew it, the system had changed my password - and what was the way of communicating back to me about my changed password ? It sms-ed it back to me. Now sitting thousands of miles away from home how was I supposed to get an SMS? The password shouldve been emailed to me at least. I tried mailing the hutch assistance email ID but obviously they;re too busy to reply ....
When I tried to login next time, it just said UserId disabled so I thought they had somehow figured out that my account needed to be deactivated.
I just got the good news that a 1900 Rs bill is due back home and the problem is not abt paying it ... its about how to pay it !!!
December 04 You ought to know you're heading towards trouble when...Its raining and pouring and beneath your tyres there seems to be no splashing.
Yeah sure there's no water. But there's ice.
This was the most important lesson I learnt yesterday after I rented a car for the first time.
It had been 2 months since I had last driven a car. That had been in the crowded streets of Meerut , the hyper busy Uttaranchal-Delhi highway which can be the best possible training in how erratic traffic can get.
I had to go some 15 miles away to rent a car. How I got there I just don't know. It was a combination of multiple bus rides, in multiple directions, foot-walks across lawns and parks, and a completly random arrival at the address of the rental agency. It was anything but the shortest path.
The renting-guy was in quite a hurry and handed me the keys to a Mitsubishi Lancer ( courtesy Microsoft) and I happily headed to the car. Automatic transition,which is supposed to make things really easy, but it took me a while to figure out how I had to get around to moving the stick, and like many troubles the solution was found by a phone call to a school friend :) The absence of a clutch felt like a loss of control though. It felt less like a car and more like a gokart.
Well I was in luck. For I was parked right next to the highway towards Redmond. So I just had to head back right.
Well it was just 6pm. There was a long evening and the night time ahead. And after all these ages , I had a car!
Maybe it would be fun to just head further off from Redmond , go for a 20-30 mile drive and head back after a while ?
The mind said *no* . It was not the most sensible thing to do. Definitely not for someone who's used to driving in a place
which is so dry and barren as a desert that there's never been a drop of water disrupting the view thru the windshield.
And, on a cold rainy wintery Seattle night, when the roads are so slippery, and even the streetlights are goin off,you should be
heading home to bed. But the heart said *yeah* go ahead have a nice drive , In any case you've got to drive 15 miles to get
home, it really wont matter if u drive another 15-20 more for fun. I generally do what my mind tells me to and not the heart.
But this was an exception. Forbidden fruit is certainly the sweetest and a nice little drive on a high speed freeway was an
understandable temptation.
And so I began my journey in the opposite direction. And it wasn't as straight a path as I had expected. So I made random
decisions at every fork and enjoyed my drive for a while. Till I realized that I was now pretty clueless about where I had reached.
Every fork/crossing/exit in this area looks pretty much similar so there's no concept of taking a note of 'landmarks' out here at
least not for a stranger. Yeah the wheels and brakes were slipping. The roads were slippery and sloping.
And the windshied was wet and frosty. My journey paused for a while. Now I looked around the place. There were the Issaquah mountains on one
side. The mischief maker in my mind came back to work again. I had come all this way. Might as well take a nice enjoyable drive
through the hills as well. Whether you're lost at Point-A or Point-B it really doesn't matter because lost is lost ... So might as well
remain lost for a while at Point-B instead of Point-A if it looks more interesting ? And so I started going up in the hills . And it started
to rain and pour. But there was no splashing under my tyres so I felt pretty ok. Till I saw the reason why. The roads were more white
than grey. And , a few hundred yards ahead of me, were a bunch of abandoned cars, with their wheels jammed in ice.
So it was obviously time to retreat. As I started my jourey 'homewards' , the streetlights were off , the traffic lights were off, and even I
was pretty much clueless about where I was heading. Anyways, after a little more aimless wandering in circles and spirals, stopping at
Gas stations,burger joints etc,and a total of a 40 mile journey for the 15 mile one which was required, I finally landed up where I needed to :)
Home sweet home and a good night's sleep ..... with the satisfaction of a random exploration (of a small part of)
what the beautiful Pacific Northwest has to offer..............zzzzzzzzzzzz...........
November 19 Seattle / RedmondSeattle as a city is quite facinating . 3 million people , and some of the world's greatest technology has come from this city. Right from Aircraft , to operating systems ... to real time buying and selling systems (Boeing,Microsoft,Amazon...) and thousands of startups apart from this . And the startups here do well.
In a cool/cold mountain-surrounded environment the brain, I'm sure functions better and more creatively.
Have been drawin up a list of museums to visit over the next couple of months. The museum of flight would be first on my list :) Before I got lost somewhere in the bits and bytes of the screen ur gazing at right now, aviation was something which I really found facinating and I still do find it really interesting . If there's a wonder of engineering its the aircraft . I mean ... every calculation going into its making has to be so accurate, its so critical. Similarly the circuits and programs controlling every single part of it have to be so accurate . Its not like a web service which can simple throw an exception , jot it down in the log file , and get away with it. Its a matter of life n death - a single slip would mean an air crash. On the code front ,what 've heard is that for every single line of code which controls the rudders/wings etc ... there are 55 levels of scrutinizing n testing .... anyways ... continuin with Seattle
Not too sure about this but its probably ranked as the best city to stay in the US. (Yeah sure therez a lot of rain ... ) Also what I find really cool is the fact that its
located right next to the pacific north west mountain ranges.
The first impression I get from a city is from its skyline , and the architecture.
This is probably the millionth time that a pic of the Space Needle is being posted on the Internet - but somehow it is so impressive that I feel it deserves one more tribute:)
And then again ... how can I forget to paste a pic of my new office .. Building 16 at Microsoft - the Office Business Platform Division
November 18 An Exit and a StartWhen I had just joined college I hadn't ever thought of working straight out of undergrad.
July 2006: Fresh out of college , full of unrealistic expectations of what life and work had in
store ,but definitely with a lot of zeal - I arrived in Mumbai to start my very first job
at Lehman Brothers. Took a while to sink in that its generally not the 'cool things' which
generate millions for a company. Anyway I actually enjoyed churning out Java code for
a while. What mattered most was that I was enjoying this new and unique phase of life -
gettin to see the real world for a change, getting drunk in every possible corner of Bombay,
making 5 year investment plans for my savings and of course,every time I felt like goin
on a shopping spree or booze bash the plans and the savings would be reset to zero, but
that was all part of the fun.
In general, I prefer seclusion and isolation. And ...from college days... I'd use my time most
constructively when alone or behind the closed doors of my room.The Bombay stint changed
that . I was happy to be outside and away from the house . And had some gr8 times in all
possible corners in and around the city. The times when I felt completely at home and relaxed
was when I was with my school buddy in his room in the IIT Powai Campus.
A year down the road, July 2007 : Felt I badly needed a change of environment more than
anything elses. A new place , a new setup . The work had become staler sooner than I had
expected too. That of course is a problem which can trail you anywhere and its best to ignore this
rather than try to run away from it. The main problem was ... well .. something which I just
can't pinpoint to .. I just didn't even feel like doing the small,insignificant things I used
to do previously whether it was making paper planes, random sketches or writing code , or blogs,
just for fun. And its in times like this u realize that these things aren't so insignificant after all.
Ppl had moved out of Mumbai. And finally there was no good-ol-school-frn to go to ...something
which had always seemed to exist was whether KGP or elsewhere ... :)
I did have the Microsoft offer, but had an unconfirmed starting date due to a delayed visa .
I did know that Msft was also working on a Canada Centre and just in case I didn't get a visa
to work in the US they could place me there as well.
When I walked into office on 23rd July , at the end of *yet* another day, ( after convincing
myself that Microsoft would be able to place me somewhere or the other ) I decided to call it
a game over at Lehman Brothers. There didn't seem to be much point in pondering over the decision.
And I just didn't want to wait for the 'stamped visa' to be with me before I resigned. Because the
visa still seemed to be a question mark . If there was a time to do what felt right for me it was
now. It was time for a break.
After a lot of emails, and updates ... the much awaited magical H1B visa dropped out of the sky.
The last month at Lehman (notice period ) was pretty relaxed, and I managed to roam around
quite a bit in this period. And the month which followed - I was on vacation - and put it to some
good use by doing some wandering in the Garhwal/Uttaranchal mountains and spent a good deal
of time at home too.
25th Sep:Finally time to fly off :)
|
Print
