I support job reservations, but

As you might have read in numerous papers, those bloody !@#$ing SOBs (read politicians) are pushing HARD for reservations in elite institutes like IITs and IIMs. As if this weren't enough to seethe common man, they are even pushing for reservations for the *so called* backward classes in privately held companies! While I can go on and on for pages against this move, here's an interesting stand point that I want to share with you guys, my buddy sent it as an offliner to me...

I think we should have job reservations in all the fields. I completely support the PM and all the politicians for promoting this. Let's start the reservation with our cricket team. We should have 10 percent reservation for Muslims. 30 percent for OBC, SC/ST like that. Cricket rules should be modified accordingly. The boundary circle should be reduced for an SC/ST player. The four hit by an OBC player should be considered as a six and a six hit by a OBC player should be counted as 8 runs. An OBC player scoring 60 runs should be declared should be declared as a century. We should influence ICC and make rules so that the pace bowlers like Shoaib akhtar should not bowl fast balls to our OBC player. Bowlers should bowl maximum speed of 80 kilometer per hour to an OBC player. What say?

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Any delivery above this speed should be made illegal. Also we should have reservation in Olympics. In the 100 meters race, an OBC player should be given a gold medal if he runs 80 meters. There can be reservation in Government jobs also. Let's recruit SC/ST and OBC pilots for aircrafts which are carrying the ministers and politicians (that can really help the country) Ensure that only SC/ST and OBC doctors do the operations for the ministers and other politicians (Another way of saving the country)!!!

Weekend in the Abyss of Amazons

This was a pretty boring weekend. Maybe because, we drew Saturday's match against BMC (0-0) and lost Sunday's match against Kanbay (3-0). We wanted to take BMC down. Wining against Kanbay was not in our minds, that's one of the best teams in our pool, but at least we wanted to score a goal or two.

Wanting to see it for a long long time, I managed to watch Amazon Abyss. This is BBC's expedition to the depths of Amazon waters, place where NO ONE has ever ventured! With waters so murky that you can hardly see what's 10 inches away (even with world's MOST sophisticated camera), multitude of fishes and reptiles, a good number of which are predators, this expedition is as much fearsome as much it is fun. All the time predators know you are there but you don't have a slightest clue of who lie in ambush. You are venturing into completely unknown territory. It's not at all fun to be surrounded with ants whose bites sting and pain for more than a day, fishes that burrow into your flesh, predators who can swallow you alive (Anacondas!), fishes who can blow you unconscious underwater with thunderous 600 volts of electric shock (electric eel) and other hundreds of them which are never heard of! All your might and strength on land is no match to even the smallest of predators down there, and the small that I'm talking about just just 2-3 centimeters long! Check this out to see what kind of predators they discovered!

These people shot more than a dozen species that were never ever seen alive, leave alone shooting then wandering in their natural habitats. Discover a handful of new species and still claim there's MORE to discover!!! The whole journey, recorded as 2 and a half an hours documentary, is just mesmerizing. After seeing this, I feel so much thrilled. There's no limit to what a human can do and to what extent he can go to pursue his dreams and goals. But I also feel gloomy wondering what am I doing to my life in this artificial concrete jungle, and trying to conjure up artificial intelligence. These people made a difference. I too want to.

I visited the tropical forests of Annamalai and enjoyed it very much. But that was 2+ years back, and I haven't a break after that. Now I'm charged up to take one, a BIG one (but only if I can convince my boss, sigh). Oh, I recall I promised I'll post on it, but never did. Now it's too late. But I'll make a point to share some good snaps that I clicked there.

This site, Foliage Outdoors, is a good starting point to start planning.

My way of doing a task

My perception of perfection...

Do your work so well, that the Living, the Dead and the Unborn could do it no better!

Well, this is the way I like to work. I prefer doing things the way I want them to be done. But there are times when you cannot have your way, and for good reasons.

I don't like doing a task with output anything short of perfection. There should be no need of any rework. But at times under unearthly time frames, you are forced to do sub-standard work. At times people expect you finish it off as soon as possible so that technically he can assign you something else. But only I know that I've to keep perfecting it, for even people don't like to use anything less than perfect. There are numerous situations under which you are compelled to compromise on quality. This is major source of contention, discontent, distress and frustration; at least for me. And this is typical of American style: Get it out first, we will then patch up if it fails to meet someone's standards. I prefer the Japanese style: Do it bloody right the first time. If you have read Akio Morita's Made in Japan, used Sony products, or for that matter any Japanese electronics/machinery, you will understand what I'm talking about. There's a marked difference in finish of a product made by Japanese and those made by Americans. Both have their pros and cons. Not that I always detest this style of working, at times time-to-market is very important. Just that it starkly contrasts my paradigm of hitting nail right on head the first time.

While a good source of confidence, this predisposed characteristics of mine is also a major source of PITA. When you buy a product, take it for repairs, or getting a service from someone, your expectations are too high, and more often than usual, too high for the ability of the person doing job for you. Everything you get (material and non-material gains) should be just plainly perfect. Anything short of perfection causes resentment. More maturity lies in discerning where and when to expect perfection, esp. while dealing with human nature. For, as Akio Morita has said:

You can be totally rational with a machine. But if you work with people, logic often has to take a backseat to understanding.

Are my expectations too high, am I into wrong field, am I being too ambitious, I don't know myself. That's the way life is, at times it's fun with lot of unknowns!

On a different note, this post by Sunila might interest you: Perfection.

Weekend Update

This week was a little more happening, despite the fact that I got to bed very late which resulted into sluggish mornings at office.

First was Sweta's nth birthday, (where n is a finite natural number greater than 0) and her hubby wanted to throw a surprise party for her. But unfortunately, he committed a BIG blunder: he mailed us, and mistakenly included Sweta also in the list! He tried recalling the mail (possible in Outlook) but that was next to useless (it's no surprise given the fact that M$ sucks!). Party was fun, nonetheless. Most of Sweta and Manish's old gang had gathered. It was so much fun to see them reunite. My hostel days came flashing: those late night chats, firings from rector, harassing roomies, grand feast in mess, Sunday night dinner outings, slogging in PLs, submissions, birdwatching after day's hard studying, long drive on bikes, etc. Looking at me, someone would guess I was getting bored and leftout, but I had ball of time watching their reunion. Man, I envy both of them SO much :-(

Then comes the cake, it was just mind blowing. So soft and tasty, that by the time I was done hogging on it, I hardly had any appetite for main course dinner! I hogged on it like there's no tomorrow.

That was followed by amazing Sujata Mastani.


(L-R: Boney, myself & Arun. You can see marked difference in my alertness comapred to first photo. I had hogged on to too much food)

Then, as usual, comes football! Though I was a little apprehensive about Nevis participating in 7 a side tournament, it turned out to be interesting. In tournament matches, you can't experiment much, if you commit a blunder, it might cost you a match, reducing your chances of reaching next level. Played 2 matches, Sat & Sun, both early morning 0630 hrs. First match we lost against MBT 1-2. Another we drew 0-0 against Bindview. Personally, I was satisfied with my game. Though difficult for me to point out exact improvement, buddies standing outside gave compliments that my game has improved, they could tell that I was in touch of the game. All thanks to Sunday games, to the rescue once again! Can hardly concentrate on work with anxiety for matches this weekend!
Sunday also marked the end of 4-month endless excruciating search for that perfect floaters for my feet. After taking 2 years worth of wear-n-tear in all seasons, they are structurally still perfect, but too worn out on the exteriors to be worn at office regularly. The ones that I had are now discontinued by Reebok. Once you are spoilt by such good quality stuff, it's difficult you will like anything else. The ones that you like are way too costly to be justified as a footwear, and the rest are too sloppy to be used. I ended up buying Woodland shoes, a little reluctantly.

Last week: Part boring Part fun

With a holiday in middle of the week (Thursday) this was by and large a pleasant week, for after a really long long time I managed to visit theatre. Watched Cellular, a movie that I've been wanting to watch since past 2 months. More on movie later.

Saturday was very tough. God knows for what reason, the moment I woke up, my state could be perfectly described as: annoyed, agitated, restless, and listless. No bad dreams, no nightmares, nothing too bad the preceding night. Still it was so depressing in the morning. This is typical of the days when you suddenly stop and wonder the sole purpose in your life!!! Where you want to be, what you want to be, why you want to be what you want to be, and all that apparently annoying questions occupy your cranium box, leaving space for nothing else. You tend to track back in your life and search for that one good moment, one good incident, one good word someone spoke of you... anything you can hold onto and get through the blues. It wasn't much fun getting over saturday. Don't know why am I reminded of a post by my colleague :-S

But.... touch wood come Sunday and football set it all right! It is just an hour or two in the whole week where I get to forget all the (social, professional, political, moral, ethical...) worries and just live in the present moment. Just like a small kid, oblivious to the worldly worries. To add to fun, this weekend game was so just GREAT, perfectly balanced teams, with individual game at its minimum. Return of a couple of old timers (viz. Ashwath, Kapil & Shashank) added to the quality of game. Anytime someone scored a goal, the other team scored almost immediately! It was a close fight with a score of 3-4. Both the teams made spaces, trying simple passes most of the times. Unlike lot of past games, hardly anyone attempted to make, as Sam likes to put it, the elusive magical passes. This game was technically far superior than lot of last games.
I tried joining a club so that I can enjoy football sessions more often than once a week, but busy schedule kept me from following through it. Maybe I should retry!

On professional front, I have moved back to my Mentor's team, something, I should admit, I've been secretly longing for. I don't know why I consider him my mentor, or for that matter, why should he mentor me... I guess it's because it is so much fun to be lead by a person who is always bubbling with energy (greatly contrasting his gray hair), tackling every problem with equal rigour and sincerity, pushing you off your limits, but extending a helping hand so that you don't stumble, and doing all that with a good sense of humour. I want to learn as much from him as I humanly can.

That pretty much summarizes my status quo. Too much to write, but will continue in coming posts: Book reviews, movie reviews, technical tips and some more personal stuff!