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!!

Working in shifts 101

It is a wonderful Monday morning. Its 6:30AM in the morning, I am sitting in my balcony of flat 302. There are some clouds moving around, there is a lot of chirping of the birds, a pleasant breeze is moving around and the temperature is wonderful 22 degrees. I got up at 4AM fresh midway of my 4 day long weekend. I had night shift last week and have same next week. It has been almost 6 years in IT industry ,I have worked in shift majority of the time, wanted to write this down since long, finally doing it.

When I joined Infosys as a fresher I had around 6 months training in Mysore campus, and then I got allocated to the unit: IMS. It stands for Infrastructure Management Services; it involves mainly supporting client infrastructure and more importantly working in shifts. I started working ,initially found  it tough working through the night as it was something new, also had some back problems, but I went along my merry way.

The first thing about working in support domain and consequently in shifts is accepting it. I never thought or asked why am I working in shifts, I accepted the fact that I have to and found peace within. I see a lot of freshers these days who don’t want to work in shifts, sometimes you have no other option and to be happy you need to accept that you have to do it, only then you would be able to do it happily.

Working in shift has a lot of advantages as well, we get home pick and drop in cab free of cost, we get shift allowances and we also get wonderful long weekends like the one I am currently enjoying. There are some cons as well, like it leads to obesity if you don’t have proper diet and exercises. Also your body cycle changes frequently and I would not recommend working in shift all your life, I am planning to stop it once I get married towards end of this year. However initial phase of the carrier, when you are young and energetic you should do it if you do not have any other option.

I want to give some tips about working in night shifts especially based on personal experience. First thing is don’t sleep in office during shift, because if you have some sleep then you will not be able to sleep properly when you go home, and consequently feel tired the next night. All this affects your performance at work. So be awake all night, and make sure you eat at least twice in the night. Make sure you eat something before you sleep, as it is hard to sleep on empty stomach. Make sure you have curtains in your room, no noise disturbances, and also if you want, wear an eye mask. Sleep for at least 8 hours and make sure you are fresh when you get up. Drink a lot of water throughout day and night.

Working in night has never been a problem for me. I like it in fact as there is comparatively less workload and we also got night shift allowance, however I am experiencing some difficulty in changing of sleep times after night shift to other shift currently. I was not doing night shift in Amdocs since couple of years and doing it now so perhaps not used to this. Hopefully I will adjust soon. Well its 6:45AM now and I have also booked a 9AM show of the movie Terminator, one of the perks of working in shift, you get to watch a movie on Monday morning, when majority of people drag themselves to work!!!

Time for some social work.

First of all I am thankful to my dharam fiancé who reminded me, that I had not blogged since long time, and I should write a post soon. I have been busy in office, and also had some minor health problems: cough and cold due to weather change. However, I have a long weekend now, almost 4 days and here I am with my new post.

I have always believed that you must give back to your society in some form. Last year I did some monetary donations for various causes. However, I always wanted to do something non-monetary too, devote my time for some social cause.

‘Outreach’, is Cognizant’s social work entity. They send us regular emails of activities performed by them, and asking for volunteers. I had registered last weekend to go and teach in a school, however I got placed in shift and could not go. This weekend too they sent mail, I had night shift the day before but I was determined to go as I had 3 days off after.

Another factor was that this time it was in my locality, so transportation would not be an issue. We had to go and teach English in nearby government school as written in email. I registered for the event, and got the reminder for the same. I went to the school and met other volunteers, there was a bit of change in plan. We had to actually do survey in the local village.

We were given some forms for the survey. The aim was to encourage villagers to send their kids to school. We were targeting kids between 6 to 14 years. We went to each and every home, an asked them if there are any kids at home in that age and if they are going to school. If not we would encourage them to send to school and take their details for admissions purpose. Surprisingly majority of the homes where kids were there did go to school, it was good to know!!

Couple more questions we asked in the survey. First being if there is toilet in their home or not. Second being do they have water supply. Everyone had water supply, and few did not have personal in-home toilets and used common toilets.

We were split in two teams, each team having 4 volunteers. We roamed for couple of hours in the sun. I had just finished night shift, which was hectic. When I came home I was feeling very exhausted, however I was happy that finally I started what I wanted to do apart from my daily work. Something for the social cause. It made me realize how lucky I am to have a good home, good education and good job. It made me happy that I did some work at ground level, and worked with colleagues to make a difference in the society. As I have said once, ‘There are a lot of talkers’ and takers in this world; we need more of givers and doers!!’

Downfalls of Digital and the Internet Age

So it is 5AM in the morning. I am in night shift. Today is my second day of night shift in the new company. No this is not the downfall I will talk about; I am fine working in night. I accept it, what I want to talk about is the disconnect among ourselves, and among our friends and family which has come along with the addiction to social networking.

I am an avid facebook user since long time. I won’t say I am addicted to it, but I use it often. Technology like any other Science can be a boon as well as a blessing, depends on how you use it. Like you can use Nuclear power to generate electricity to power cities, you can also use the same nuclear energy to destroy cities. Same is with facebook, I use it for constructive purpose, to stay up to date with the latest in technology and also the happenings around the world. Also getting an update on friends, but one must remember to be in touch with friends on other mediums apart from facebook, and I imply digital mediums on a bigger scale.

I did not have WhatsApp till last year. I had a Bada OS mobile of samasung, and they did not have WhatsApp for it. I switched to Google Nexus 5, and started using WhatsApp, first couple months were those characterized by novelty of something new, I confess I used to ping a lot of friends and waste lot of time. Then I started using it only to stay in touch with close friends and family. Important thing is how much time you can afford to give to such things, and how much time you actually give. I do not spend more than half hour a day on WhatsApp.

Few more things I am proud of are living without a TV for over 3 years, and that too happily, living without a mobile for more than a month. I am in the business of IT, and I have passion for IT. However I am not addicted to it, I can live without it. I like the real world more, I enjoy the sunrise, I used to do that first thing in the morning in Magarpatta City apartment. I enjoy travelling, I enjoy partying with friends in real life. Yes there are a lot of downfalls of the digital age, but it is up to you on how much you can control yourself, and how much you can utilize the technology, rather than technology utilizing you!!!

My 3AM Jugaad Tomato Soup

To start with I am very proud of myself today. I realize that I have also developed a very good ‘Jugaad’ mind now. There is no doubt that I was a genius since bachpan, but now having the additional power of common sense and ‘jugaad’ makes me feel even more sturdier.

Well I am not very humble when I write am I! Anyways to start with what is Jugaad? It is a very common term used in India, and yes we Indians are so smarter than the rest of the world! There is a jugaad for everything in India! I just did a google search of what Jugaad means? I got the meaning in the search result, please note in the search result itself and not after clicking on any web link! Hell there is also a wiki page on Jugaad! Also there are books having Jugaad as part of the title!! Feeling Proud! :D

So let’s get to my epic Jugaad of today. So it’s 3AM in the morning, due to my 3-12 shift, my sleep time which is 4AM has not yet come. I finish my 'Pringles sour cream and onion' box (and boy I love it!! #Addictive), I gulp on my tetra pack chocolate milk and have some cookies along with it. Then I decide, let’s make soup!

So off I go to kitchen, first thing I notice there is no utensil to prepare soup in! Well there are but they need to be washed (and I hate washing clothes and utensils :P ), so I look around the house, search and finally get an old rusty tapelu, it’s a big one, but well it will serve the purpose.  I pour water in it, and put it for boiling, problemo numero 2, there is no sansi (pakkad thing), I was thinking of using a cloth or something when I am done.

After 5 mins…problemo numero 3, the old rusty tapeli is giving out rust along with boiling water, what to do now! No problem…keep calm and keep boiling! Had a quick look around…found a big chamcha…ok I will use that to transfer water from tapeli to my mug. About the rust?? Well basic science, solid is heavier then liquid as it has higher density, after I turn off the gas it will settle down again! (y) After that I use a jharni (filer thing) while pouring water from tapeli to my mug via the big chamcha!

Mug already has the soup powder, just stir it…keep it for 3 mins…awesome soup ready…awesome Jugaad soup ready…even if some rust got dissolved in water…body needs iron in one form or the other…at the end of the day the feeling of accomplishing a wonderful Jugaad is simply marvelous!

Life @ Star Date 67942.9

Today is Star Date 67942.9, and the state of my mind is same as it was around SIX years ago. It was 30^th July, 2008, 03:25AM in the morning and I had a curious little mind, searching for answers. I just had to get my thoughts out and I blogged them out. That was the time when I first wrote about Life, there are 18 labels in my blog about Life, some philosophical, some experiential.

The things I want to write about is that between the first Label of Life and the 18^th, I have learnt a lot, I have grown a lot. I have experienced successes, experienced failures. Had a lot of happy moments, and also lot of sorrowful moments. However I have learnt one thing, the harder you fall, the stronger you are when you get up. I have learnt that it is important to be happy, but it is also important to be sad, because unless you don’t experience darkness, you won’t realize the importance of light.

I always wanted to do something important, something useful for humanity. Having high goals and dreams often comes with a price; the mind often achieves what it envisions.  I have experienced this many times, when I hope for something to happen, it really happens. I have also had a lot of deja-vu moments in my life. But I still contemplate what the limits of the human mind are. How powerful is the human mind and what is the source of its power? I dint have many answers in 2008, which I have now, may be one day I will have all my answers!

Life @ 67942.9 is going very well. I am rocking away on my Nexus 5, also read about the upcoming Nexus 9 tablet, looks to be a good one. Also I got myself my favorite Digit magazine’s 13^th anniversary issue. The weather is wonderful in Pune, the onset of monsoon, it is very pleasant and windy, and there is happiness all around.

The FIFA World Cup 2014 is going on, and sadly I am not following it much. I don’t know, I have lost my interest in Sports. I remember watching a lot of Football (mainly EPL), Cricket, F1, Tennis and WWE when I was in school/college. Now I do some reading, some social networking, and I watch a lot of movies. I can arguably say, I have watched over 70% of the released movies (Hindi, English) of 2014 in cinema hall!

I am going through a very good phase of my life, but I am choosing happiness over my goals. It is really funny; there are basically two types of people. One who just want to enjoy life and not think about anything else, and one who are goal oriented. I am a mixture of both. I realize that if I am very happy, it means I am not focusing on my goals, and vice-versa.

Life is about experience, life is about meeting new people, knowing them. I have met a lot of people through school, college and my jobs. You learn from them, you interact with them, you become very good friends, sometimes your good friends have to go away and you feel sad, but then you find more friends. Happiness and sorrow is a state of mind, HELL… EVEN LIFE AND DEATH IS A STATE OF MIND!!!

18th June, 2014

 Another date blog post, and a post after long time! I had pretty hectic work in office for last 3 months, was feeling tired, took a vacation and went to Gujarat. Visited Rajkot, Baroda, Anand and Bhanvangar. 4 cities in 9 days, lots of siblings masti, lots of home food, card games, and eventually gaining a few kilos at the end of it all!

 I visited Rajkot first, I was really surprised by the amount of development in Rajkot, I could see lots of premium apartment buildings, actually more than I have seen in Mumbai. The highways in Gujarat are also incredible, to be frank I have visited US, and some top cities in Gujarat have infrastructure facilities and development of similar to what you would find in the US!

 Did a lot of shopping in Rajkot, then I went to Bhavnagar, it is a very memorable place for me and my sister. We just used to love playing on the big swing in the yard outside the house and brushing in the open air tap every morning! As soon as I sat on the hichko, I felt an indescribable feeling, it was good, it was happiness, it was wonderful indeed! Went to our kud-devta Dhudiya-dada temple in Babara, which comes between Rajkot and Bhavnagar. Performed our family traditions there, and back to Bhavnagar.

 Went for the movie Fugly in the evening with my little PhD sister Nidhi, it was a big mall indeed, movie was nice too! After that had some exotic hot bhaijias, tomato and capcicum bhaijias to be precise! :D Went to Takteshwar mahadev temple after that, weather was wondeful, cool and windy. Takteshwar is a temple on the hill, and you can see whole of Bhavnagar from it!

 Next morning started for Anand, first time visit for me. Reached there and meet mota mama and all. Anand and Valabh Vidyanagar are next to each other, Valabh Vidyanagar is the biggest educational hub of Gujarat, where a lot of NRI students come too! Visited my brother's college where he is Assistant HOD, the infrastructure and cleanliness of the college were really commendable! Really impressed!

 Went to Baroda after that. Played cards with Snehal, had Punjabi food, a relief after 9 days of aamras and Gujarati cuisine, also had Pav Usal there. Started by journey back home from Baroda! It was a wonderful refreshing trip, and a memorable one indeed!

 Coming back to the subject now, today we had Kaizen fair in office, and my idea was selected as one of the top 12 in my unit. I was given a stall and I was presenting my idea to all visitors and the judging panel. A new experience indeed. I was a bit nervous all day, but did all the required preparations, started getting good feedback from the audience and then it all went well!

 Also finally ordered Moto E for mom, form flipkart today. This has become like booking tatkal ticket in irctc...lol. Also today is Sparsh's 4th month birth anniversary, Kaizen fair achievement dedicated to you big guy!

14th April, 2014

 One of those date blogs again. More importantly, another post for this year. The amount I blog is directly proportional to the amount of happiness in my life. I have blogged a lot in past few months... :)

 So today was 14th April, 2014, Monday. A day which everyone hates, first day of the week to go to office. For me it's a week off. There are lot of perks in production support. You get one week off on Monday, it helps for a movie buff like me, you get cheap tickets and shows are never full!

 Today was the plan to watch Rio 2. Also that I had watched Rio before, I was looking forward to this one. It was up to the expectation, liked it. After that, had my favorite Mexican cuisine food for lunch, and off to another movie: Bhoothnath Returns. I had not seen Bhoothnath, and did not have any expectations from this one, I went because my friend recommended it as a good movie. Well he was damn right.

 It is a laugh out riot movie. Amazing performance by all, especially the child artist. Really fun to watch movie, and it also has a message in it. The importance of voting, and what happens when you consider Voting day as a holiday and go out on a picnic or just relax. This is a very bad mentality among us Indians, first we don't vote and then we keep blaming the government.

 Well for starters, this movie did inspire me to go to Mumbai, just to vote, I won't have a holiday, as voting date in Pune and Mumbai are different, I will still try my best to go to Mumbai and cast my vote. I want to make a difference. We all should make a difference, and work towards betterment of our society, rather than just complaining and criticizing the government for not doing anything.

 The difference between us and the developed countries is that, in developed countries, everyone not only cares for upliftment and betterment of their surroundings and country as a whole, but they also come forward and take action. This is the thing we should practice too, I know it is easy to say and no one really cares. But to start with, lets just make sure we all make our vote count, let our vote make a difference...

100 posts..5 years..

 I started blogging in 2008. My first post was on my mom's birthday that year. Also it was, when I just finished my graduation in Computer Engineering. I really love writing, I have passion for it, also I believe it is a very good way to look back at time, and relive some wonderful and special moments in life.

 I remember my first ever job at First Source, I was waiting for my joining date at Infosys, and wanted to do something productive. It was a wonderful experience. I worked for one month, just attended training for our client British Telecom. Project name was Talk Talk. Then came the moment, 20 days in my first job, I got joining date of Infosys. I spent very short time at First Source, but it was my first job. I had a lot of fun, and I also learnt a lot.

 So 10th November 2008 was my joining date at Infosys. I can see this was one of the most crucial period of my career. Working for such a big company, I was nervous and excited. I was definitely overwhelmed when I saw their Mysore campus. I am really proud to be associated with Infosys. I posted a couple of experience, one after one month at Infosys and one after six months. I feel great reading about the wonderful time I had there. Also there is the Transformation post on how I started spending lavishly on branded products, and the One year completion post. I was in MQ training during that time in hyderabad.

 I moved to Bangalore for my first production project. It was for MQ Support, client was Northwestern Mutual. I remember the post of Christmas 2009 in Bangalore, I really looked different then. I really had nice time in Bangalore with lots of parties and outings. 13th feb 2010 taught me a few things too. My time in Bangalore was wonderful. I learnt a lot in my first project, also I had lots and lots of fun.

 Then I had health problems, I had to undergo back surgery. I was on leave for more than a month. Once I resumed office, I joined Pune campus of Infosys. Another chapter in Infosys history, after Mysore, Hyderabad and Bangalore. I worked in the Hinjewadi phase 2 campus of Infosys. It was for microsoft project. I really liked the food there, lots of options. I specifically remember the super size paratha we used to get in the BPO cafeteria. I stayed in Pune for couple of months, and then I was back to hyderabad on short term transfer.

 I had lot of night shift in hyderabad. So lot of time to write philosophical stuff, mixed with astrophysics. I stayed in the guest house in hyderabad. 28th November 2010 was again a memorable day. I got a new mobile, Samsung Wave 723, it is still working great for me! Another post coming from night shift in hyderabad, which I am proud of: The Rational Philosophical Thinking.

 Then came 2011. A very memorable year for my life. The year when I went to USA for the first time. A year when I quit Infosys. A year when Indian won the cricket world cup.  Also 2011, was the time when I started working on my sci-fi novel. The Untitled Series.  Also 2011, was when I completed 10 years of vyaskartik2001. I started my grad studies at Purdue School of science. I could not adjust to the live by yourself lifestyle in US, I also could not manage job along with studies. Food and weather were also a problem. All these factors resulted in bad health and coming back to India.

 I started searching for a job. After 2 months, I finally got a job as a contractor in Amdocs. Amdocs is a lot different than Infosys. Here, employee care is given more importance as compared to Infosys. The work culture is great. Lot of fun events throughout the year. I am also lucky to be in a good team with good management. I will finish 2 years in Amdocs soon. Time has certainly passed quickly. I have lots and lots of memorable moments at Amdocs, one of them being meeting Anna Hazare. I have not written any post about life at Amdocs, like I have done for Infosys, but I do have lots of photo albums on facebook of the wonderful time I have had here.

 Also I have blogged a lot about cricket in this blog. Like every Indian I am an avid fan of cricket. I have also blogged a lot about technology, something you would expect from a Computer Engineer. Today is 29th Dec, 2013. Everyone has plans for the 31st. I don't know what I would be doing, but today I felt wonderful recalling the past 5 years of my life. Hope 2014 is a wonderful year for everyone!

Life at ~27.75

  Bazinga!!I don't use Bazinga, only when I crack a joke, I also use it in some of my exotic blog posts, like this one!It may or may not include a joke though. This is Kartik Vyas, writing post number 97.00, and today is star date 67383, yes if you don't believe me, check this link out.  Also one thing worthy of noticing is that star date is not only determined by the date, but it also takes into account the current hour and minute...fascinating isn't it!

  Speaking of the word fascinating, fascinating implies something that is of great interest, or attraction, enchanting, charming or captivating, well in this case it would imply captivating. 

  Let's get back to the subject, it says Life at ~ 27.75. Well here 'at' does not mean, the usual I am 'at' a restaurant kind of 'at', it implies, I am 'at' a certain stage of life, which in this context defines the 4th dimension of the time-space continuum, confused? I mean TIME!

 Then you might wonder, what is the '~' sign? Well for any person who is a mathematician, which I would like to add, is more inclined towards using it, it means many things. Well to start with, it means, probability distribution, or  row equivalence or asymptotically equivalent, or a simple equivalence relation. How do I know? I know everything, because I am a genius and I have an eidetic memory. Well I would also like to add, I have an IQ of 187!

 Also, I would like to record in my blog, today is 10th August on Earth, and right now session 3 of day 2 of the fourth ashes test series is going on. To be more precise, currently the 71st over is about to start, where Australia are trailing by 31 runs, with 5 wickets in hand. England have already retained the Ashes, a good thing to know in case, I succeed in time travelling, and I come back in time to the start of the series, I could win a lot of money. But again, if I were to do so, the proposition that I would have written this blog seems unbecoming. Well, I may have already traveled to the future and written a blog which would be independent of the fourth dimension of the continuum, which again is TIME!

 I would also like to add, that in my current human form, on the current planet earth, on the current date, I played ping pong! Actually called as Table Tennis, it  is governed by the worldwide organization International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), founded in 1926. ITTF currently includes 218 member associations. The table tennis official rules are specified in the ITTF handbook.Since 1988, table tennis has been an Olympic sport with several event categories. In particular, from 1988 until 2004, these were: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles and women's doubles. Since 2008 a team event has been played instead of the doubles. Well getting back to the topics of today, I did win 87.50 of all the games I played today.

 I would also like to say that I have found a spot in my room, a spot where my seat is directly facing the opposite wardrobe mirror, so I can see who is coming and going inside the house, and it is also perfectly aligned with the fan inside the room, with respect to all three dimensions. 

 Today is Saturday, today was the Aloo Pulav day, usually I had Aloo Pulav day on Fridays , but after my change in shift roaster, where I have days off on Sunday and Monday, as compared to Fridays and Saturday, I had to make a change in my routine. Tomorrow, is Sunday, tomorrow is go to Amanora mall day, which I am planning to change to go to Seasons mall day. The mall is just opened, and is nearby my apartment. Also, after my new roaster changes, Monday's have become watch a movie in mall day, its very convenient to get a ticket, as other homo sapiens, go to office and I can easily get a ticket. I am planning to watch the movie Wolverine this Monday, and then I would also go the the Crossword book store, which is a must whenever I go to the Amanora mall.

 I would like to conclude this blog number 97.00, by saying........err BAZINGA!!!

The Pursuit of Happiness

 Happiness is a state of mind. What is the aim of life? To be happy or to be rich? Does happiness comes with wealth or it is independent of the amount of wealth a person has. How important are friends and relatives in being happy?

  So many questions! Being happy depends on having satisfaction in what you have and where you are. One must not have craving for something which one does not have. Aiming for high goals and working hard to achieve them is one thing, constantly complaning and crying for something you do not have is another. Be satisfied in what you have and you would be happy.

 These are some simple lessons, but it may be difficult for over ambitious or over confident people to unnderstand in one go. They just want everything in life. Are you of that type? Constantly asking for more than what you have? It is a bad thing to be and may not lead to happiness all the time.

 This post is coming after quiet a while. I have got settled in my job at Amdocs now and back to working in shifts. This is the first week of working in shifts and hopefully I will get time to work on my Untitled Series sci-fi novel. Also I am approaching 100 posts in my blog, this is number 98. The 100th one I am planning to cover all the previous posts.

 What else is happening in life? IPL 5 has started. MAncheter United are 8 points clear at the top of EPL and looking to win the title easily. Facebook is doing good, not much bugs and new full screen image viewer looks slick. Also good decision on buying Instagram, payed them more than required though I guess.

 Saw the movie Kahani last weekend. Very nice movie, the plot is good and the climax is very nice, good suspense movie and excellent work done by Vidya Balan.

 As I mentioned IPL5 has started, it is not that exciting as it used to be. There is gonna be the T20 world cup too, clearly there is an overdose of cricket and people are getting bored of it. Speaking of getting bored, its surprising, facebook is still able to entice its users and going strong with all the tweeks and modifications. They added Angry birds game and that is fun to play. However, I still believe facebook won't be there forever, 5 years tops I say!

25th November 2011, Black Friday

 Thanksgiving is a very important part of American culture. Black Friday is considered as the day after Thanksgiving day. For what reasons, it is considered as Black Friday, I did not find out yet, but for me, it was a day to never forget.

 Have come to Florida for Thanksgiving weekend. Spent most part of Thanksgiving day on beach, playing american football and making sandy mountains with tunnels in them. It was a wonderful day yest. Today, we decided to do all the Black Friday shopping, we have come to Panama City, Florida and the malls here are pretty good. Bought something from almost every store here, good deals for Thanksgiving! No! did not buy any electronics, mainly some clothes.

 Then we decided to go jet skiing. Last time had done that in Patayya, Thailand, its pretty simple, until we realized the might of the water, especially when it is the ocean. We had rented 2 jetskies , 90bucks for 2 hours of jet skiing seems lot of fun and yes it was lotta fun indeed, I even touched 35mps on my jet ske. After around one hour, tragedy struck. I was driving mine with my sister sitting behind and my brother-in-law was riding with my mom behind him.

 They somehow lost the balance and the jet ske toppled in the water, sounds non-threatening, untill you add three factors, first no lifeguards, second they dint know swimming, and finally it was the ocean. I was in my jet-ske and felt like jumping and trying to help my brother-in-law, my mom was saved by other jet skiers. I felt like jumping in the ocean to save my brother-in-law, but my sister said no to me as that would result in imbalance of our jet ske and was very risky.

 Finally a  bunch of folks with a motor boat saved my brother-in-law. It was an experience to remember. I did topple around three times in canoeing a couple of months back, but that was in a stream of river, this was the ocean and today we experienced its might!

From FloRIDA!

Having a mixture of feelings now. Yes I am in Panama Beach City, Florida with family and having a ball of a time. The sad part is I withdrew from my Masters study and will be heading back home soon to start from  scratch. I hope my previous experience would help me, but I want to enter the field of development for a while, from a support and administrative domain.

Leaving for India in December 1^st week, as I reflect this year 2011 of my life, it had a mixture of everything. I quit Infosys job for Masters studies, came to US and enjoyed a lot with family, visiting lots of places and the goal was to stay and study, complete Masters program.

They say there two ways to live life. One is to let it happen and other is make it happen. I tried to follow the latter and did not work out so well for me. The let it happen schema was what I was living at Infosys, it was not bad, just not good enough. I realized that may be, I am not good enough, Masters program from Purdue School of Science proved too demanding and strenuous for me and I had stop it as my health was getting affected.

Right now as I am sitting in DaysInn, beach facing hotel in Florida, I have realized, choosing your destiny is a tough task and should be done carefully.It requires a lot of hardwork and persistent patience. For now I am going back to let it happen. Have No clue, what job I will get, how long will it take to get one either? I am not depressed, may be a bit sad,however, astonishingly I am a bit excited too, what’s next!!!

Diwali 2011,OURS!

Jindagi jine ke do tarike hote hai, aur Duniya mein 3 tarah ke log hote hai. It’s because of dialogues and movies which have such dialogues in them, Aamir Khan is aaMIR kHAN, and that is the reason why one whole country can proudly say…oy teri…every time they burp, rather than saying I am sorry, or peeing in their pants and not burping at all.

Diwali 2010, My to Diwali 2011 OURS, I have come a long way indeed. Long way in my life, long way in character, long way in attribute and long way in mY continuum called time!

I had a dream to come to US, I had a dream to pursue Masters, I have lot more dreams. I quit my wonderful job at Infy to pursue further studies, I wanted to control my life, choose my destination and choose my path, and this far ir ir going pretty well.

What next? People asked me many times? You want to settle here? What will you od after mASters? Well to begin with Masters is not as easy as I thought and I have just started putting on my strides, so the future is declarative and not imperative, it’s all about learning, implying the learning and doing the do!

Also today was a wonderful memorable day. Every weekend in US is and always will be memorable for me. I found family like friends in my sisters friend circle, you find a connection and a sense of relvaration with the. Relvaration is a new word I coined today, one after a long time!

RGIT....the place where I come from!

 Having worked full time for a few years I had almost forgot the importance of my undergrad education and how much it is helping me now. I was just taking some rest and few memories came back to my mind. Memories about my under-grad studies back home. Memories about the wonderful, state of the art building we have, the wonderful location of the college which faces the shore, great bunch of people, yes I remember that when I was in my second year and I had thought of a punch line which said: RGIT: The place where the crowd rocks!

 Currently doing grad studies, I realize the importance of all the classes, all the effort our professors used to put in. Coming for campus connect program on weekends was a big headache for us, but if you see it from the point of view of the professors, they were working on weekends! I actually feel like calling up a couple of professors and talking to them , especially the concepts taught on Systems Programming, Compiler theory, Software Engineering, Data Structures, it is all helping me immensely and I really thank all the wonderful faculty of my undergrad.

 To give u an idea, as part of one of my grad study course, we were suppose to write an SRS for a 3 tier cloud based application, also compatible with mobile devices, and hell I smoked it in 2 hours flat. Object oriented analysis and design and software engineering helped for sure. All the courses I have taken involves a hell lot of mathematics and logic, its application to computer science and we had mathematics in 5 semesters, dint we?

 I mean somehow, now everything makes sense. Like all the concepts you learn at undergrad level are actually implemented at grad level. Not everyone does that back home, as there are not much reputed institutes apart form the IITs, the IIS , BITS and several others, but hell no way I can get into an of those for grad studies...

 So yes...I came to US...and it actually feels like home...grad classes have 80% indian population and frankly speaking you are so filled with assignments, papers and quizzes....you don't actually get time to think tht you are in a whole new world, a new country...and add a 20hr job to that and basically you know what u get..hell if you still want more be a CS rep for IEEE and a member of ACM council...

.I actually believe the strenuous course structure of Mumbai university prepares us to slog, survive and succeed. Remember those days of chapping the assignments in SE and TE, chapping pages and pages...well everything helps in someway or the other, it's all about connecting the dots, and realizing that the dots are getting connected.

 The library is the best hangout place for me, wherever I go...hehe. RGIT, yeah they all know me, Infy DC library...yeah they know me too...bas abhi yehaan bhi pehchaan ban rahi hai...hehe The library in US is like OMG....like my one has 4 floors, graduate carells, skpe and multimedia rooms, best part is access to absolutely any paper from the world, be it IEEE, ACM, anything if it's there out there, we have it here. Also not to mention the big bomb MAC systems...hehe just started using those, ideal for reviewing papers...

 The other day, I was talking to one of my friend who is from SVNIT, very humble guy and I know him since more than a year. I was discussing, how reviewing 2 papers every week, gets to your head and he said, it was a norm at his college and his college students actually started publishing papers at undergrad levels...and I was like what...just awesome! Wondering what all they cook up at the IITs? Well I tried to get an in...just don't happen to study two years, all night along with a regular day for it!

  What all this implies is the power of indian minds and the extend of things we can achieve, I mean I am just an average or below average student and I know tons of people smarter than me, all that is required is a right path or a channel for them to use to get to a specific goal! I mean there is a reason why India is yanking close to 8-10% GDP every year with a population of 1.7 billion. You discuss about India with American grad students, and there is a good chance they will tell you they have many friends from India. However the notion still persists about the poverty and all, but then I tell them do a comparative analysis with US...and then one day somehow we started talking about China....that day I had a new found respect for China...how great China is and how much it is respected in the US! Try to look up Chinese history and culture and you will be in deep awe of amusement and enthrallment!

The Soccer Dream !

 It was years back and the time when Ruud Van Nistelrooy was the number one striker for Manchester United. It as the time when Micheal Schumacher was ruling the world of F1 in the prancing horse. It was the time when Shawn Micheal, Undertaker, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin were in WWE and there was more fighting and less drama!

 That was the time I was in school. Remember watching all the Manchester United matches, even my dad used to join in if he had time and how I had to convince mom to let go off her Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi during special matches of Champions League and PayPerView events of WWE. I guess most of you who are working/doin grad studies can related to all this....

 I have played lots of cricket back home, only watched soccer on TV, playing it was kinda dream for me. My friends in neighborhood knew a bit and we actually used to play some with the small red cricket rubber ball when I was in school...sounds funny but we can't really play with a soccer ball in the apartment compound! Come undergrad school and we went to the beach to play some soccer...most of them were amateurs and got exhausted running around after 10 mins...I was damn exhausted too!

Just played a bit of soccer yesterday in a small park along the Canal here. brought back all the soccer memories...all the Manchester United moments...the fights with friends who support Chelsea and Arsenal. All the uncountable hours of FIFA 2007 and 2010 on PS2. Playing soccer yesterday was very enjoyable and it meant a lot. I am gonna learn soccer now, practice regulary and one day play for some team(may be the college team)...even playing for recreation is fine...but I am gonna play...I AM GAME!!!