Sunday, February 8, 2009

Life at Hyderabad

It is hard time for everyone due to economic recession. I am lucky to have job at this moment with CSC.Work environment here is absolutely good. PM and senior colleagues are really friendly.I hope that this will continue in the future. No coding stuff is assigned to me. It is worth to be at unpopular position and tune out of popular beliefs in the society. I am also living with it and quite happy with the life.I love CSC each day. I think the days of joy are few and dejection is everlasting.I am enjoying the moments till this honeymoon period of happy days is over.

Now a secret mantra of job satisfaction criteria:

- If you love your work most on Mondays, you are having a Dream Job.You are passionate about the job and with this kind of commitment,growth is waiting for you in the future.

-If you hate to go the office on Monday(not due to party hangover but because of work nature), you are doing a Real Job. This is the job most of us perform and live a life of quiet desperation. This job is done for paying the mortgages. Future is undetermined here,hence no comment from my side.

Dev D Phenomenon: Dev D is a treat to watch.I have watched in Rs 50 valued ticket in balcony: Talkietown this weekend.Cheap hai na !!! The cinema hall was excellent in the ratio of input money with output infrastructure and services. From the makers of Black Friday, a contemporary tale of Devdas is reality and bold cinematic experimentation. Emotional Atyachaar is rocking the shows around India.

Alienation, while speaking a universal language, needs a local interpretation. Dev D is here to raise the voice of ours:Generation X. It has been long fed by moral grounds and cultural inheritance stuff. The self destructing and rebel character of Dev of contemporary times has just given the local interpretation to the universal phenomenon. Hypocrisy, Identity crisis, emotional experiences are part of all this dark journey of Dev's life. It represents a generation searching for an alien identity in the society. Inability of Dev to attach itself to anything is well documented by anurag in this movie. Soundtrack, camera work and dialogues are superb. Characters are not justified on the basis of ethics is greatest achievement of the film.

Dev D is a dark and underground India that is not depicted by our media,literature and movies. Our bollywood had fallen in the abyss completely till the end of 80s. Rise of new wave thinkers has been a revolt against the non sense stuff given by bollywood in the name of cinema. The death of parallel cinema got unnoticed in mainstream. Anurag Kashyap is the leading torchbearer of new wave. The path of light and fresh air from bottomless pit lifts through dark phantoms of ocean. Kashyap is taking understanding of mainstream viewers of cinema in the direction of art rather than entertainment.

New Hypothesis: When a chain smoker is in the mood of stress, solitude, daze, numbness,joy, excitement or boredom, he wants a cigarette to refresh his mood and think a new idea. First two puffs from the cigarette gives him marginal utility of the investment in the cigarette purchase. All the puffs after it is remaining return of investment. Hence you will observe few smokers throw away cigarettes after few puffs when urge of smoking is over. I want authorized people's (smokers) view over these lines.

Resolution Time: Doing is quantum leap from imagining.-Barbara Sher.
I have taken several resolution this year. I will not eat non veg, pizza, burger and eggs. I will not drink soft drinks, beers, wine. Hence cigarettes and alcohol consumption is avoidable from now on. It is hard to resist temptation but i am discovering frontiers of my willpower. I am rebel in tradition and conservative in habits. Commitment against lust of taste is really going to be tough. One more secret resolution will be revealed after 1 month. Till then wait and watch...

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Underdog Nillionaire

Underdog Nillionaire: What a amazing inventory name by me !!!
I will be the hero of this novel & movie if ever created (finance koi aur kar de) only by me. Heroine will be sensuous and no vulgar scene (by Indian standard) will be introduced in it. Leave alone the future dreams, I am portraying as Underdog Nillionaire in the real life. No money of my own in the pocket and working as a technical support team in IT company justify nillionaire and underdog term to full extent.

My motto: If impossible is nothing, then i am doing impossible. (good for T-Shirts quotes)

When people are dieing for creative work like software development in IT industry,I am happy with my job in network security. May be great ambition is lacking in me, but I know my inherent potential and limit in each field of work and life. I think my work in CSC is quite safe and stable with slow growth. KT(Knowledge Transfer) sessions are going on from previous 5 days. 1 week in job (not real work yet) has been completed in the company.Details will be following in next post. I cannot complete my creative writing without mentioning cinema. From the heading,you can easily guess the name of movie.

Slumdog Phenomenon : Many people are loving it. Few people are hating the projection of image of India in foreign nations. I will also give my highly regarded opinion about this movie.---If 'City of Joy' movie is real Calcutta then slumdog millionaire is real India...

Slumdog Millionaire is not an Indian film as the Indian media seemed to project, rather it’s a British film with an Indian context. And so instead of proclaiming this as our conquest on the global stage, we should lament why anyone from our own industry could n’t achieve this feat. Danny Boyle has treated real problems of India with masala story in a vibrant way; He has made what he really wanted but the truth /reality is not depicted. Movie is tour-de-force but runs too fast without having any depth. It reminds me of Salim Javed movies of 1970's with lot of twist and colorful songs. Only melodrama part is missing,the rest of all is here. How many will watch it again for the story? I will watch it only for music,cinematography and acting of young jamal.

Remember Gandhi by British director Richard Attenborough with Ben Kingsley; It was movie of an Indian but what was achieved from it in bollywood except Oscar to dress designer Bhanu Athaiya. Same is with Rahman's association with Danny Boyle. Geniuses of AR Rahman is recognized now abroad because he is original(by international standard also).I liked Slumdog millionaire, but it is nowhere in the class of Salaam Bombay! or Dharavi, which dealt with a similar theme (problems if not theme).For the real face of slums of Mumbai, please go through this well researched article by Neeta.
For concerned people about society and cinema : Smile Pinki is the Oscar nominee in best documentary on short subject category.Put your genuine effort in bringing such stories in mainstream media.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Indian Ocean and Euphoria

Snaps from the Kashi Yatra-2005:Most memorable music festival of my life...

Thursday, January 29, 2009

First day at CSC Hyderabad

I am currently in Hyderabad staying with Rahul Priyedarshi. Joining at CSC was delayed but not denied. I am here from hyderabad gate (BHU) to Hyderabad 7 month after graduation. I stayed in city of nawab, Lucknow for long time and city of nizam, Hyderabad welcomes me with honor and distinction. City seems to be nice and full of joy. It seems paradise on first glimpse. First day of work was 'no work' really. Few paper works and interaction with fewer people were done. I have now become full time CSC employee. Feeling is great and working environment seems fine. Talking in crude language, domain is anti hacking and networking. PM (Project Manager) looks like a cool and chill person. 29 jan 2009 is on the verge of end with my entrance in professional world. The last man standing without job in our batch(me) will tell you work experience in coming times. Hail CSC!!!

Friday, January 23, 2009

College versus Education

Never let your college interfere with your education.
This altered statement of Mark Twain is self-realized guideline in mine learning throughout past years.

I am giving you a little disoriented but true thought of my mind on this jolly topic. My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. There is only one Education, and it has only one goal: the freedom of the mind. I felt that more you give attention to the academics ,greater will be the intellectual property loss. Academics in India (Partialy IITs &IIMs) is like Wahhabi Islam. You have to submit to teacher with blind faith(closure of mind) and complete loss of scientific temper. Most of the teachers do not change with time and makes education boring. They ensure that more emphasis on written work than learning concepts. They bring same yellow pages of notes to dictate lectures over years.

Student feel academics as:''The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.'

The age of innovative thinking and curiosity is dumped down in classes. Securing threshold attendance has became primary objective of the student community. The learning curve will follow a negative slope reaching nearly to zero. From the word "go" in college life, the motto of most student is just to pass and get the degree of freedom.Commitment for studies become zero in coming years. Loss of passion and self motivation for improvement is major disease prevailing in most of the colleges. Its not loss of reason or logic but loss of enthusiasm that bring pessimism inside you. An anger is agglomerated inside student against unjust and inefficient system. A sincere and logical student behaves as irrational in mob or group due to this frustration.The lament of teachers on lack of discipline is correct but no other way is possible. You cannot expect reformation of religion from the priestly class. Similarly, the administrators do not want to evolve with changing times.

So what are the choices remaining for the students in this passive environment?

Student politics damage more career of the student than college property destruction in universities. All of the student submit to the will of management in professional courses.But this is not the way to have inefficient people upper edge to you. I personally stands against the system. No system is perfect, we can not make it perfect also. We have to try for excellence with limited resources.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education.... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete. ~G.K. Chesterton

Both the student administration have to cooperate with each other with. Questioning on authority should not be taken in negative percepts by administration. Transparency in both economic & administrative decisions should be there with involvement of alumni, students and teachers, not just few self proclaimed youth leaders. If neither of us stand up against minor unfairness, nor we will have enough courage to stand against bigger crimes.

India vs U.S. education system: Sabeer Bhatia view here---

The Indian system of education is “knowledge-based”, while in the U.S. it is “inquiry-based”. The former encourages rote memorization, whereas in the latter students are encouraged to ask questions. In a fast-changing world, where knowledge is becoming obsolete every few months, it is more important to have “thinking” individuals who ask questions and create new products/ processes than individuals with a lot of knowledge. The other aspect of U.S. education is that educational institutions attract the best and brightest from all over the world. So, you get a very competitive environment, which brings out the best in one. The mantra of “meritocracy” extends beyond education. As a result, you have great companies where merit and ability are more important than seniority. Institutions in India tend to value experience and seniority over intellectual ability and creativity.

Bottomline: The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think - rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men. ~Bill Beattie

Previous brilliant articles by author about teacher and student relationship--Young Minds & Teachers and Movies for Teachers. For more quotes about education, read this;