The big fat Wednesday

For last 2 years, Wednesday’s have been very special and challenging for me. For most professionals, Wednesdays being mid-week is generally loaded and the longest day at work. For me, it has never been less than 14hrs of work ever. Over the years, I have always rescheduled all my work around Wednesdays so that I could remain completely focused and committed without any hindrance the entire day. Even my family got accustomed to the Wednesday threat and never disturbed me or scheduled any activity around this day of the week. Well, Wednesdays were the day when I reported my weekly progress to my Vice president late in the evening.

Well, all the credit goes to the Ex-Oracle Vice President Nagaraj Srinivasan to who I reported through my immediate manager. I have always idealized Nagaraj as an idyllic technocrat and a management guru. His commitment to technology and innovation was immaculate and steadfast. The Wednesday meetings created a kind of pressure that we loved and hated at the same time. The weekly meetings helped us innovate and build great tools and products and eventually helped us filing 6 patents over the last 30 odd months.

Unfortunately Nagaraj has decided to move out of Oracle last week in pursuit of a better opportunity elsewhere. He has created a very large vacuum and will be next to impossible to fill in. His vision and attention to minutest of details is what left me awestruck about this fantastic individual. I will miss him terribly over the next few months whilst things settle down. His approach to solving problems and exceptional multitasking has left a very positive and lasting impression on the way I approach and solve interesting problems and deal with multiple things at hand.

I am eternally indebted to his contributions, guidance and constant mentoring.

I am confident that Nagaraj will be an extremely valuable asset to any organization and will create a lasting and an extraordinary impact.

Indeed I’ll miss my Wednesdays !

Its Shankranthi Time Again !!

Sankranthi time has always been exciting for me. I really enjoyed the festivities celebrated in Mysore during my childhood. Mysore being the cultural capital for Karnataka, was always fun filled, colourful and very traditional. The values and heritage imbibed in me by my parents and Mysore has left a lasting mark.

My mother would meticulously prepare a few weeks ahead of Pongal/Sankranthi (usually the second week of January). The best part was the special sweet Pongal (Pal Pongal) my mother would prepare; the Tamil Nadu style, it was essentially lentils (green gram) and rice cooked entirely in milk and simmered for hours until it becomes thick and obtains an orangish ting. It has been the tastiest pongal I have ever tasted. Evenings were more of the ladies stuff wherein the womenfolk go and exchange “Yellu, Bella”; this is a customary activity celebrating the harvest season. The exchange of “Yellu, Bella” essentially consists a mixture also called “Yellu”, but has roasted peanuts, sesame seeds, dried coconut pieces, roasted Bengal gram and Jaggery pieces. In addition to Yellu womenfolk exchange Sugarcane, Bananas, Small toy [called Kudike] filled with Kusri (Sugar candies) and standard tamboola with Betel leaves, Betel and some money.  This is excellent symbolism of community building, networking and exchanging pleasantries. All Hindu communities celebrate this festival in this manner at Mysore. Of course this generally is followed all over Karnataka as well.

In Andhra Pradesh, it’s a tad different. Here they don’t exchange Sesame as it is considered inauspicious. Instead the Rangoli, the doll arrangements and the overall atmosphere during Shankranthi are beguiling.

Wishing you all a happy Shankranthi festivities and a great year ahead.

Italian White Cement ?

I don't know if the ad in the above video grab was intentional. My take is that it definitely was intended as this Ad on "Italian White Cement" was popping up every time Sonia was focused upon during here address to the Congress plenary meeting a few days ago. Interesting indeed :)

2010 has been disappointing for me as an Indian

I don’t know if I should be happy that so many scams came through to public attention or I should feel bad and sick that they did occur and many more lay besieged from public scrutiny. What an awful year for us indeed, finally even the media gurus ended up being in the rut. I am terribly disappointed with 2010 as a citizen of this great land, I am happy it is ending and I hope 2011 will usher some action on this.

For me personally, I think the following were the biggest lows as a citizen of this nation (not necessarily in any order as each one hurts more than the other)

1. Unrest and breakdown of law and order in Hyderabad due to T-agitation
2. Terrorist bomb blasts in Pune and Varanasi
3. 2G Scam and Radia tapes simply made me cringe with absolute disbelief.
4. Kashmir Valley shutdown along with stone throwing by rowdy elements and inaction by Central government
5. Karnataka state government turmoil and double vote of confidence due to H D Kumaraswamy from JD(s) and the Governor himself.
6. Cheap tactics and fake fasting drama by Congress government in AP by letting off and withdrawing cases against rioting rowdy students involved in arson and stone throwing from Osmania University.
7. BSY from Karnataka and his gamble with land scams and inaction by high command in BJP.
8. Gujjar agitation and bringing the entire north to standstill, esp Rajasthan even when the issue is completely sub-judice. People want to move backward rather than move ahead.
9. Commonwealth Games 2010 and Suresh Kalmadi’s dastardly acts
10. Maoists attack on the CRPF personnel killing 80+ jawans on a single day and train bombing followed by PC’s lameduck answer and complete inaction.
11. Rahul Gandhi speaking to an US diplomat and giving color to terrorism and indicating that Hindu Terrorism as the biggest threat to India
12. Digvijay Singhs and Cong’s rant on Karkare, Nazism and RSS, etc – the cheapest bootlicker in Congress today
13. The complete shutdown of the Parliament during the Winter Session 

Studying life in our universe just 85815936000000000000000 kms wide !

I am not a biologists or even a student of biology after my schooling days. But, Biological sciences and specifically natural history has always intrigued me and will continue to do so until I cease to exist. What amazes me is the sheer complexity in which things exist. Even after we have made significant strides in biochemistry and found ways to map DNA and store them, the answer to life is simply too difficult to answer by today’s progress. Of course given the highly religious and orthodox upbringing, I have definitely attributed all of this to the almighty – the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. I am personally convinced that all this is not definitely possible without somebody being infinitely wise and organized to achieve this improbability. Spiritually I am satisfied that all of this is possible and we live in a real world and that each sentient and insentient is different from each other and all of them have been created (or existed primordially) with a purpose.

Being a student of science, there is another countenance, which convinces me that all (I mean all) is after all chemistry and physics, including life. If we were to take a temporal and spatial stand on this matter, it would become rather easy. I am convinced that at a given instance of time and space, every entity that exists (alive or dead) can be simply rolled into a chemical equation in a state of pure equilibrium. So for me life is a constant changing chemical equation, it is heartless and completely driven by basic forces, trying to drive towards equilibrium. So as each and every molecule tries to come to term with the first principles of Physics and Chemistry to attain equilibrium, life continues to exist. To further push this and ask as to why should we ever go towards the state of equilibrium at all puts me in a fix and I feel like taking shelter under spirituality, the “why” cannot infinitely go deep in answering everything with heartless science.
What enhances my curiosity further is that, is this most optimal way to reach equilibrium? For example, plant life uses photosynthesis to sustain and “live”. Photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and sunlight to generate sugars and other complex carbohydrates (again a process of attaining equilibrium) thus sustaining plant life. Almost all forms of life directly or indirectly depend on this process. But of course, there are other species (probably extremely ancient when God was trying out life in his labs). There are organisms that obtain energy and “live” on other chemical processes like Chemotroph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemoautotrophs) that exclusively live in deep and extremely hostile deep sea vents. They derive energy from Oxidation of Iron and Manganese and other metals. Similarly recent reports (as of yesterday – 1^st Dec) claim that NASA may have found bacteria completely living on Arsenic! [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/02/nasa_alien_press/] – though the revelations have not been completely made by NASA, we need to watch and see their expected discovery.

If ever NASA or other organizations across the globe are able establish that life can exist without the current process of elemental combination's (for example Arsenic instead of Phosphorus) it clearly indicates and convinces me that there maybe billions of other life forms spew through the universe! So Aliens do exist and when I say god is omnipresent – he must “definitely” be omnipresent! I can only hope that god is a little more partial to some small dinky planet thrown somewhere in Milkyway which is an ignorable spec in the 93 billion light years (approximately 85815936000000000000000 kms) wide universe!!

- Aditya Rao

Blowing the bubbles !

When you are on vacation and finally get time to play with your toddler, you need to innovate and be very good at that to keep them occupied. They have a very big devil’s workshop and you better be prepared if you don’t care much. But things of small stature keep them happy and occupied and nothing better than balloons and bubbles. So my father & I decided to make him small soap bubbles to keep him occupied; we were reasonably successful, but it engrossed us adults more than the kid and we continue to enhance the formula to make very large bubbles using home made ingredients. 

We started off initially with a mix of liquid hand wash and water, but we were partly successful. We later graduated to making it with Shampoo + liquid hand wash and we were pretty successful in making bubbles which were about the size of a football, but the strong binding was missing and the bubbles would go bust in a matter of a few seconds. Later our success was in mixing sugar and liquid dishwasher soap (Vim) and ahoy! We were successful! We are able to make bubbles with about 50 cm diameter and last up to a minute or so.

Some pics of our insane and kiddy activity below. I found out that glycerin is a very good binding agent vis-à-vis sugar and we hope to try that out soon. I want to make a bubble which is 1 meter in radius (2 mts wide), I’m also experimenting the use of vacuum cleaner to blow the bubbles as blowing the current bubbles will take your breath away! Science is fun !

It costs (big) to maintain a car !

I gave my car today for a service as the breaks started making strange noises and the effeciency had come down. Alarmed that most important breaks would give way, I rushed my vehicle to the service center. Fortunately for me it turned out to be an issue with dust accumulation and nothing serious. The service advisor indicated that there was no need for a break overhaul either. I must really appreciate Varun Motors for their sheer professionalism, which is terribly lacking with another Maruti biggie - Gem Motors. I had nightmarish experiences with those folks on an earlier occasion.

Well, not digressing much, I skimmed through my well maintained car documents from the earlier trips to Maruti Service Center. To my sheer surprise, I found out the following:




Excuse the small image above, but I hope all can read it.

Most of the expenditure has come from the new pair of tyres that I got recently - Yokohama A-Series 185/70 R14. Also the fuel efficiency in not that great (compare with Indica et al)

So, the conclusion from the above table is that to keep a Maruti Swift car for at least 5 years, you need to be committed to spending at least Rs. 6.25 / kilometer - of course this includes all the necessary maintenance and accessories. So a drive to office and back has officially claimed 24 * 6.25 = 150/-. Assuming I come to office for 22 days in a month, then we have ~ 3,300/- spent a month on travel to office by my car.