Recession

Context: Hope in the time of recession. Writing this article with a pen in one hand and a job in the other may seem a bit high winded but I will request you to read on ……..
(I would like to thank Pragya for giving the chance to contribute to the Comp Sc PG Department Newsletter)

Published in INFOBAHN, Christ University

I will survive

• Because challenges cannot break me
• Vultures of gloom cannot take me
• Fire cannot consume me,
• Rejection cannot drown me

Not only will I survive but

• Challenges will mold and let me grow roots
• Gloom will teach me to happy in little things and still bear fruits
• Fire will make me stronger
• Failure will make me strive higher

Because when going gets tough, the tough get tougher
Perspective

We only see the plane flying in the sky and we strive to be one. Little do we ponder as to how much time it waited patiently in the imagination of early man in the drawings of Da Vinci to the ideas of numerous others to the belief of Wright Brothers and finally to the opportunity of aviation fuel …….. that today a thing which more than 1000 kilogram can fly.

When we compare man’s achievement of flying a plane and the need to get a job to make ends meet we may come to perspective. When we were young we dreamt of greatness like being a sports star, artist or scientist and here we are at the very onset of our adult life and we are choking at the very thought of failing.

· We will need to be patient (and not expect a job 6 months before)

· We will need to be disciplined and diligent (to drop a 100 CV’s in different companies)+

· We will need to maintain a positive attitude (then only company number 101 will recruit us)

· We will need to make allowance in our expectation (salary, location, profile)

· We should manage our time well and make sure our fundamentals our strong and our key skills are honed

· We need to be realistic as we may need to work in an NGO,BPO or as a Salesman

And in spite of all this we still may not get a job THEN we need to have the wisdom to see that we are jobless not because of our own limitation.

Then and only then will we have the hope that when the time comes we will get our break. Any organization would like to recruit a mind who is patient, disciplined, flexible and has a good attitude. A mind with ability to learn on his own, realistic and wise. A person whose mind, heart and soul has been molded in the fire of challenges.

Success is not dependent on IQ, it needs a brain alright but it clearly needs the head its inside should be screwed on right. And trust a challenging situation like recession to get any fault we have collected in the early years’ right.

Just like recession is temporary slump, so was the ridiculous high salary some people got at boom time a temporary jump! So do not be lamenting on the spilt milk ….. the milk which you were about to buy with the money you were about to get from the lottery you were about to win.
Recession 2001

In 2001 a whopping 2.7 million jobs were lost.

A good friend of mine was fresh out of college in that year. He dropped more than a hundred CV’s in Electronic City, ITPL, Koramangala and Jayanagar. His first salary was a paltry Rs 1500. He worked extra long working hours for more than a year. Today he has a very good pay package but does he look back and curse those time, no my friends he looks at it with nostalgia. My NCERT scholarship holding sister who lost her job in recession today earns 3 times her otherwise would be salary. CFA and MBA are feathers in her cap she added (apart from the MTech she already had before recession).

These are not exceptions as I do not know a single person who did not have a job in 2001 and who still does not have a job
Growing Roots

The biggest challenges many of the IT Companies have when they recruit from campus is that they need to arrange a training program to assimilate the new joinees. This assimilation program ideally just needs to cover the organization culture, processes and best practices. But this is far from what it is today in India. Campus program are quiet extensive. A lot of time is spent teaching programming basics, SQL and some key fundamentals. Some organizations spend considerable time also on behavioral skills.

It is the prime responsibility of each job seeker to be honing their skills, not just to clear the interview and get a job but to do well on the job. So if challenges come grow your roots deep and spread them far. Bamboo is one of the fastest growing grass at a tremendous rate of 2 feet a day but what many people do not know is that the first 4 years it does not show any outward sign of growth as it spreading its rhizome system of roots deep and wide.

So aspire to be a bamboo in the tough times ahead and success will find you. Do not become like seeds caged up in a box in a cozy kitchen but bury yourself and build your roots so that one day you may become a mighty tree.

Conclusion

O Recession, I am like champagne,

Shaking me would be in vain

I WILL shoot up without disdain

Footnotes

· Why Aviation Fuel: Leonardo Da Vince was living 500 yeas ago, pedaling up the hill is tough enough taking off like a plane !

· Heaviest plane AN225 loading capacity is around 500,000 kgs !

· 2.7 million jobs were lost according to one study in the recession of 2001

· “Mighty Oak tree” and “tough get tougher” are not my original quotes

· Check out Bamboo on Wiki, some have grown at 4 feet a day

"Joy of Programming"

Dear Programmers
Check out my other blog http://zingprogramming.blogspot.com and try the Level 1 Programming Excercise

Submit Code and Time Taken to my email address if interested

Think First Google Later

Google is a wonderful
.........But use it as a tool
................Its not AI for fools
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If you download every code
Coding will be a heavy load
---
If you search for every error
Debugging will be terror
---
When will you think
Else Brain Drains Thru the Sink !!
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"File Not Found", "Suspicious Pointer Assignment""Bubble Sort"
please please please
---
Research is not same as search
Discovery is not searching thru results
Innovations is not googling "Ideas for meeting"
---
Think First Google Later
---

(Please Note: AI:Artificial Intelligence)
(Please Note: I love google but I suggest use it as search tool, it is not meant to be AI for fools)

Bhaiya Me Not

Re Released: Rakhsa Bandhan 2009 (originally published in Hindustan Times Jul 5th 1995)

Context: This article was written by me when I was doing graduation in St Stephens. Read the article keeping in mind that I am quiet young when I wrote it. The emoluments (Rs 700) from this went on to serve my one year’s tea and bhelpuri expense

The normal English language may have one hundred and one flaws, but it is one up on most Indian Languages, i.e in its lack of use of the words “brother” and “sister” during normal conversation.

In this land of Rakhi and Bhaiya Duj children grow up with firm realization and conviction that any one older to them (even by a matter of seconds) has to be branded under the label of Bhaiya and didi.

It is the former label that I have an aversion to. This aversion though not recent reached its peak about a week ago. If you say you haven’t had a crush during your college days you are either a fluent liar with a misplaced sense of secrecy or a person with a lack of certain hormones.

The damage these two words, bhaiya and didi do to your lovelorn self is worth narrating. One day I spotted God’s wonderful creation at my college gate. Time came to a stand still, the world moved in slow motion with the constant ringing of bells and fluttering of my heart. Such a situation instead of getting the best in you invariably numbs your thinking process. So when she looked at me, I was sure she had also had heard the bells and felt the flutter. I walked straight up to her as smartly as I could under the circumstances (I must have resembled a lumbering and bungling bear with a minimum of seven litres of the best wine inside him).

But I was run down by a bullet train. Hit by a six ton battering ram and brought down to earth by a small push when she said “Bhaiya, time kya hua hai ?”

All the bhenjis who without any bias believe firmly in the concept of brotherly love and affection to all men kindly do not misunderstand that the apoplexy, anguish and tribulation I underwent was not due to the trivial question hurled at me, but the implications that went along with it. It meant, I was not going to be ever considered by her.

The blatant use of this terminology is curtailed only in the first year of college. Thanks to initial courtesy you have to call you seniors, sir or maam, for a month or so. In this duration the non brotherly relationship is well established. Which I am sure has cut short a dozen rachis enroute.

Unlike the word bhaiya, bhenji is not the said thing. A student calling a lady on the wrong side of 30 as bhenji may not raise much of an eyebrow. But repercussions in calling a young attractive lady in campus the same is not hard to imagine.

But challenges and bets are so much in vogue that you can actually consider it as part of the college curriculum. I challenged my friend to call the lady across the street bhenji. My friend a true college dada went across the road and asked “Bhenji time kya hua hai ?”

In this sweltering heat one would welcome a cold wave anytime. But the ice cold glare which he got back in return for the question from the woman was another matter.

That he had a grin and she had a glare, that she didn’t have a watch and he had one, did not add much warmth to the tete-a-tete, so coldly they parted.

The message I wanted to get across is

Bother me yes
Brother me not
Curse me yes
Bhaiya me not

Why Teach

Context:

Senior Lecturer, Christ University
Teacher and Guide, Sneh Sadan Orphange
Ex Competency& Culture Manager, MindTree

I love converting ideas into action and teaching lets you do that day in and day out.
I always wanted to share the
· Joy I get from reading books,
· Joy from doing things,
· Joy from touching lives,
· Joy from living dreams
· Joy of seeing someone else see ”wonder” in things around him
Mentors and Guides

I was way too lucky to get good teachers, mentors and guides all along the way. My parents and siblings to begin with, teachers in Columba’s, people like Fr Ajay and PG Uncle, Lecturers in Stephens and Birkbeck.
I was not much attached to my father in my growing days but what I am and what I stand for a lot comes from my dad and I would always be thankful. The stories he used to tell me as a child always inspires me to be a writer. The travelling and the trekking bug comes from our trips on shoe string budgets and our annual 6 km walk across the field in Kerala to the location of the church on top of a hill. Adi and my love for trains also come from my dad.


I used to go with my grandfather to “chanda” (shopping place) in Kerala from the time I was 5 years old. I have learnt more from him than anybody I recollect. Apart from learning how to buy fish and tapioca. I have sat on a tractor and bullock cart with him. Climbed trees, picked wood, eggs and fruits. I have taken the calf to the river for giving it a bath, my grandfather was taking the cow alongside me. Whenever I think about it tears well up in my eyes even today. How many of you have actually helped in getting honey from a hive !!! (Do keep in mind I did not get to put my hand in, I just held the ladder)


These guides taught me the reason why knowledge has to be applied to truly appreciate it
BooksBefore I learnt the alphabets I learned from my siblings that reading was fun. When there are six siblings elder to me who deep dive into books every afternoon without any mandate from the top it makes complete sense to get a hand on a book ASAP.
I enjoyed reading both fiction and non fiction and when I took control of my senses (in class III) I realized not all felt “wow” when they read History, Geography, Maths and Science and I used to think boy what a waste
Today I read a lot of subjects including Science Fiction, Fiction, Physics, Maths, Psychology, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Religion, Management, English, Computer Science, etc the only difference is that now I exclaim “man what a waste” when others fail to see the joy in the books.
It is possible that my screws need a little tightening and this wonder I see is misplaced ….. but till this conviction exist in my mind I always would want to share this feeling.

When did I start teaching

• In school I used to request my friends to read Alistair Maclean and Resnick Halliday
• In College I was crazy about Physics so I used to explain relativity to those who would lend an ear.
• In the Youth Movement while leading / directing plays or while taking workshops
• As a PM in the last 6 years, I have always tried to be mentor those who work under me by leading with example, Inspiring with words and in worst case pulling my seniority
• Giving PMP Training
• Teaching in the Campus Batch

So I do not feel I have become a teacher today

In Conclusion

My friends I believe that there is teacher in each and every one of us, we would all have memories of some people who guided us in the past. There would also have been numerous occasion where you would have guided somebody else. It so happens that my job title matches with what I do today.

My Recent Sessions Include:

• Advanced Data Structures in C
• Including Heaps using PPT Animation
• Linked List using code walkthrougho Sorting using Excel
• BTREE using Self Discovery
• Leadership Workshop mixed with games
• Readiness Workshop (include session on Recession, Self Learning , Happiness)
• BI Labs : Self Learning
• Campus Training (SQL , Doc and Collaborate)
• Path to Excellence (MS Excel)
• Project Management (PMP)
• Readiness Workshop (include session on Recession, Self Learning , Happiness)
• Think First Google Later
• Physics : Optics, Magnetism, Electricity
• Chemistry : Atoms
• Maths: Bodmas and simple multiplications!!!
• History : Alexander, Shivaji, Babar
• Geography : Asia, Europe
• Story Telling

ARISE Summer Camp : Summary

Context: Summer Camp conducted in the Sneh Sadan.
The camp was shortened due to an administrative problem and lasted only 10 days unlike the planned 20 days. To compensate for lost time we doubled up the time spent, some highlights include



Computer Classes taken by Ryan, he came every day for the whole week and he brought in some learning software. Children learnt a lot of geography and GK in a very short time.
Class on Leaves proved that children knew much more about leaves and plants, as in Sneh Sadan has an excellent farm like environment. Each child bought 10 different types of leaves to class and we had a small quiz on the same.
Alpho and Naveen from MindTree took a class on Astronomy and taught the children about planets and gave them an idea of size of each by making a model in class. Children affirmed the learning by making an animated presentation using Microsoft Powerpoint the next day (with the help of Ryan).
Alpho and Divya took an excellent class to improve English using games. (Word Antakshari, Pictionary, Building Words from Big Words)
Rahul Mohandas from MindTree shared with the children his fascination of cars and his curiosity to find out how things work. How did he teach this? By simply opening the car’s bonnet!!
Srivatsa from MindTree came down and took a class on Painting and Origami.
Cricket Match was played on one evening. Team was captained by Santosh and Prem. Prem came up with class shots and Alwin did some cool spin bowling but Santosh and Father Roy’s team beat our team 2-1.
Apart from this some other classes on History, Science and Maths were also conducted
The children daily played with toys (on loan) brought in for this camp which included 3 blocks set, 2 train/track sets, 3 animal and birds set. (Seeing the way kids enjoyed and came up with really out of the box design I think one day I will open a Toy Library)
Rahul’s son and my two children came down on last day. The youngest group took them around their home and showed their bunk beds, classroom, dining halls, animals in the farm, different types of fruit trees and they loved playing with the baby rabbits.
Trek to Savandurga has been postponed to July as the schedule turned out to be very tight.
Overall it was an enjoyable and enriching experience for one and all. Father Roy did a lot of running around to coordinate the whole event, playing cricket and making sure all who came felt “very welcomed”.
Special thanks to the cook of establishment who sacrificed her 10 days vacation to make this event happen.

Finally three cheers for these wonderful children who inspite of their difficulties are able to share their joy and enthusiasm in even studying in the summer holidays. Overall the children are very bright and what was pretty evident was that they are very sensitive and soft at heart and not all that tough as they like the world to believe.

We have just scratched the surface, we will need to spend much more time with these children in a similarly planned manner if we are to make a positive impact on their careers and life in general. As of today I am sure the children have taught us more than we have taught them !


Thanks for one and all who contributed in making this Endeavour a success.

ARISE Summer Workshop

I am conducting a Summer Camp for children of Sneh Sadan. There are 30 students in this home , the age is ranging from 6-15 years. They understand English (otherwise with my Language Barrier this would not have been possible) . Two MindTree minds have shown interest, but more help is definetly required. This would be a great oppurtunity for you to give back something to the system !! . It could be as simple as 2 hours on a particular day !!