Cricket, Kabaddi & Technathon!

To start with cricket, India tour to West Indies is going on. The ODIs and T20s are over and its now time for the test series. Test series is said to be the toughest form of cricket, I have heard cricket commentators and experts say the same since childhood. Only recently when I was paying 'World Cricket Championship 2' game on my mobile, I realized why it is called the toughest form of cricket. It takes lot of patience while batting, and you really need to work hard and play with batmen psyche to get their price wicket!

 Coming back to India - West-indies Test series. India won the first test comprehensively. It was definitely a pleasure to watch too on my big screen TV in HD. India won by an innings and 92 runs, Virat Kohli the skipper continuing his wonderful form to lead with the bat with a double century! All the Indian bowlers did a good job in dismissing the host 2 times with a consistent disciplined performance. The second test match started today, West-indies are batting first after winning toss, 3 wickets out pretty soon!

  Moving on to Kabaddi, the 2 semi-finals were played yesterday in Hyderabad. This is the 4th season of the Pro Kabaddi league.The first semifinal match was between Pune and Patna.  Patna are the defending champions from last season, Pune had never reached the PKL finals. It was a very tight match, Pune were giving Patna a tough fight, especially their skipper Manjit Chiller was in great form tackling Patna raiders. Patna team won 4 super tackles, which eventually made the difference in their 37 - 33 win.

 The second semifinal was between Hyderabad and Jaipur, it was north vs south.Being in their own den, I thought Telugu titans would have the advantage. However, Jaipur team showed their class, dismantling the titans to storm into the finals, 34 -24 the eventually score in favor of Jaipur. The final should be a cracker between 2 champion teams. Jaipur had won the first edition of PKL, Patna are the defending champions winning the 3rd edition which happened last year.

 Finally lets talk Technathon. I took part in this Hackathon at my office. We had to select next gen technologies, We had taken up IoT. This was my second IoT hackathon and fourth hackathon overall. We also attended prep training on IBM Bluemix, there was also Microsoft Cognitive services training.We decided to use Bluemix, we also used a raspberry pi 3, a light detector. Team worked really hard, we were able to install raspberry OS, and connect light sensor and test it. However we faced problem registering the device on ibm internet of cloud things website. There was not much technical support and it was an unknown area for us.

 On the second day we got an ibm contact to help out, but it was too late by then. We were already tired and sleepy. We decided to go ahead with the demo with whatever was done. Not many teams had taken IoT theme, and none we know of were able to complete the solution.The demo went alright, not great nor as bad as we were fearing. There was not much weight to completion anyways in the score-sheet. Lets hope for best, we will get results next week. Like any hackathon, me and team got to learn a lot. It was a fun filled experience and we did enjoyed a lot.

I am Teacher...are you?

 So what do you do on a typical Saturday? Go for a movie, hang out with friends? Well there is nothing wrong in that, but it is important to do some social work as well. Some monetary support to the needy helps bridge the economic gap in society, and some social work where you denote your time for a cause is actually better than monetary support.

 As far as I am concerned, I am enrolled with payroll program in my company since last few years, where some amount of salary is automatically deducted for social cause. I also try to go for social work, whenever I can. I have to work on lot of Saturday's, so I get few chances, but when I get a chance, I definitely go.

 Every MNC company has a CSR branch, so you may want to check out your office mails or with HR for details. Last time when I was in Balewadi, I had gone for a CSR activity. I was on a lookout for some activity in my area again. There was a BAT(Be a teacher)program today at a school which is only 2kms away from my home, so I registered for same.

The timing was 11:30 to 13:30, I reached there. There was another person present who was the POC, he was in the Class 6th, teaching English. Every student was introducing themselves, I stood for a while and then gave a suggestion, POC told me that they want tips and help to speak in English, I said ok, he gave me the charge of the class, and I was there for around couple hours.

After every student finished their introduction, I gave my feedback on what I though about their English, and how they can improve their spoken English. Then, I asked if someone can talk on India, no one volunteered. I understood the level of class was not that great, and needed help. I asked them to remove their textbooks, and we started reading. I asked them who wants to read, students would raise their hand and I would make them read few lines.

Then we did an exercise, where I taught them about interruptions and responses to them when someone is reading. Some students liked English and had also mentioned it in their favorite subject during introduction. Some were not very interested, I made sure each and everyone got a chance to read. I told them if they are not confident\comfortable, they should still try. They will be confident once they try. I also asked the class, that if their friend is reading and not doing well, not to laugh at him, but to help him.

I gave other tips as well to students, on how to improve spoken English. It comes with practice and more reading. One should think in English in order to speak fluently. I also told them, that not everyone would be good in the same thing, and have same interest. However, you need to study to clear exams, and in future you may study what your interest is.

It was a very good experience for me, I like taking class, and this in a way is giving back to society. Helping out the young kids to go towards the correct path, and motivate them to work hard for a bright future. It was a wonderful day out in PMC School, Bavdhan indeed..

A memorable Pune – Mumbai trip!

There are a lot of people like me who do frequent too and fro from Mumbai to Pune and vice versa. Thanks to technology there are even more options now to travel, mainly the blah blah cars service. You get a chance to meet a lot of interesting people. Well last weekend was an experience worth mentioning about, met and learnt from interesting people indeed.

I have had a few blah blah cars journey which were really good; however this was not blah blah car this time. I was waiting at wakad looking for a transport to go to Mumbai. I normally get down near airport, so ask drivers if they go till there, there was another person who also wanted to go there, and so we started hunting for ride in pair!

After around 20mins, finally we got a ride. Our journey started, it was a pretty silent ride till Vashi. There was a couple sitting at the back (it was a SUV), they wanted to get down at Vashi and did not inform in advance, we took the Vashi flyover, the girl started shouting. Clearly it was her fault, driver did not argue back doing the sensible thing, and apologized, and the couple got down after VAshi flyover.

After she got down we all started talking, with the 'it was her fault' thing. Then we were continuously having talks till I got down. I normally talk to drivers about how important it is to drive safely, etc. I always make a point to keep an eye on driver, make sure he is driving properly. Then it came to drunken driving, at that time he started to tell his story..

The driver was actually a constable on duty. He had a glorious past, he lost all thanks to his drinking addiction. When he was in second year of engineering, he appeared for police constable test and came first. He got sanctioned at a very good place; he was at the best possible place, having a boss who had lot of power politically. I will not go in to details for confidentiality purpose. He actually said: it was like he was flying in his career, everything was working great for him!!

Then he started drinking, slowly he got addicted to it, he lost his glorious post, he lost a lot of money, he lost his health. He went in to rehab, he got better and came out, then he became over-confident, and got addicted again, in all he went into rehab 4 times. Finally he was able to get rid of his drinking habits, but by that time, he had lost a lot in life, and his family also suffered, but his brothers were always there to show him the correct path.

Due to good work in his glorious career, he had earned 3 flats, he had sold one of it for want of money to drink, still he has 2 flats. He is also the owner of the car we were riding in, he did not need to do so much driving, but he said he had lost a lot and he wanted to cover up in his life. He wanted to work hard and buy more cars, and earn more. He has 2 daughters, both are studying, and he works hard for his and his family's bright future.

There was another guy sitting behind, listening to all this, he asked him what happens in rehab. The driver said, the person who is addicted to drinking forgets everything, in rehab they teach him everything right from brushing your teeth, cutting your nails, etc. They bring the person to his teen position, where a person has to choose between 2 paths. It is an opportunity to choose the right path and live a good life. Normally in teens we are confused and easily get tempted to do the wrong things by seeing others. Peer pressure is also there, it is important to take the right decision when you are at that age, and you need your parents for guidance, and you need to listen to them. Well he didn’t say all of above, some of it is added by me here! Anyways, he did raise this point, and it encouraged me to write about him, and about this trip.

The guy sitting at the back also had a small apparent issue. He had ordered a cake from a site the day before, hoping it will be delivered by midnight, but it was still not delivered the next day till 6pm.He called a lot of times to the site, still no progress and he finally got pissed off. He contacted his lawyer, and is going to file a case against the cake company. I was pretty surprised seeing the last part, as such thing I had only seen in the movies, and read in newspapers happening abroad. He told me consumer laws are pretty strict now, and consumer had a lot of power. He was someone who knew a lot about laws, as he was an entrepreneur related to field of manpower onshoring, and was affiliated to government of India. He told a lot of interesting things, some of it I did not know. Learnt a lot from him too!!

So that was the wonderful journey I had, this is one of the many reasons I like travelling, you meet interesting people and hear interesting stories!!