Quote of the day

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

-Aldous Huxley

Literary Quotes

Some of my favorite quotes from the books I have read till now.

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.

There are some kind of men who--who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one.

I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. (Something on the lines of: I was born intelligent, education ruined me. )

People in their right minds never take pride in their talents.(Somehow this reminds me of Sachin Tendulkar.)

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience. (so true!!)

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.

Folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em. You’re not gonna change any of them by talkin’ right, they’ve got to want to learn themselves, and when they don’t want to learn there’s nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language. (Couldn't agree with this more :) )

So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses.... That proves something - that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human. Hmm, maybe we need a police force of children. (You will understand this one, if you have read this book, sorry :( )

I will probably do it one book at a time :) So bye for now!!

Quote of the day

A true computer science student is the one who thinks of Andrew S. Tannanbaum when it comes to Amsterdam, and not about Euro Trip. :)

-Anonymous

The Pursuit of Happyness - Book Review

I finished reading this book - The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner, a self made man & a multi-millionaire. I liked the book. I liked the frankness with which this man puts all his life in front of you.

Book starts with troubled childhood of young Chris. He doesn't know his real dad. And his step-dad never misses a chance to taunt him about it. Worse, he gets to see very little of his mother during his growing years, because his step-dad sends his mom to jail. He has his uncles & aunts who try to alleviate his troubles, and give him much needed love & support. At this age he decides, no matter what happens, he would give all the love in world to his children.

Ever curious Chris grows up and goes to Navy. He then works under a navy doctor where he learns & masters many medical procedures. He becomes a good medical professional & researcher, without a degree though. Getting a medical degree is beyond his financial reach. So he gets to the business of selling bone density X-ray scanner. As it turns out, the product goes flop, and Chris has his life's income invested in it. Due to this, there is lot of tension in his life & his wife leaves him. But he loves & cares for his only son - Chris Jr. like a delicate flower. The parts where the book shows the mutual love between father & son, touched me deeply. For E.g. an innocent toddler Chris Jr. tells his dejected and tired dad "you're the best dad!", and Chris finds his life litle easier.

Chris' strong hunger to earn money not just to become rich, but to get the man out of himself, tells us something. Being poor and homeless is not poetic and the daily crises he faces, while juggling between his son & job, are really saddening.

The book is not as dramatic as the movie. There is no mention of the famous movie scene - Chris colored in paint, locked in cell, then runs for his important interview & pulls it off successfully. But this doesn't make the book less interesting. It is especially amazing to read how Chris improvises his business skills, shifting from one business arena to another at right time.

All in all, a great read if you like reading biographies of great people. The first part of this book could be bit slow & boring at times, but the end is good. The book is as good as the movie. (I know it is mostly the other way around, but since I saw the movie first I compared the book with the movie.)

Quote of the day

The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over parking spaces.

-Suketu Mehta, from Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

City of Angels - Review

I watched City of Angels yesterday. Its about a city that is full of angels, who observe 'human' life with the curiosity of child & do their job (i.e. to take dead people from Earth to God ). I liked the storyline. It has a mystic feel.

The story revolves around an angel Seth (Nicolas Cage), who falls in love with pretty, blond-haired and blue eyed 'human' Dr. Maggie Rice (Meg Ryan). Maggie, who is very emotional and diligent medical professional and considers saving a patient on her operation table to be the ultimate goal of her life. She gets frustrated when she sees her patient dying, despite her utmost efforts. She takes its blame on herself and feels powerless & depressed because she realizes that there are some things out of her control. Maggie has a doctor boyfriend, but she does not (try to) understand whether she loves him or not. Seth, the angel, comes to her rescue, partly because he loves her. When Seth 'shows' up, (generally angels can't be seen by humans & they can reveal their identity on their own will) she thinks he is a human, but is equally amused by curious (or quirky) questions like 'how does pear taste like to you?', 'what do you feel like when you are in love?'. This is because angels can't 'feel' human emotions like pain, fear, hunger, thirst. They live eternal life & take pleasure in listening to the music of sunshine (This scene where all angels gather near sea shore at the time of sunrise or sunset, to hear music of sunshine, is shot with amazing artistic sense). Slowly Maggie starts thinking he is 'weird' and when she sees he cannot feel pain from the cut of knife, she completely freaks out and dumps him out of fear. Later on, one of her patients, Nathaniel, who is a fallen angel, tells her he can become a human if she wants him too.

So Seth chooses to become a human by falling down from a building (something on the lines of 'fallen' angels living earthly life). Camera wonderfully captures (human) Seth's amazement towards human emotions. He feels pain, gets drenched in rain, gets mugged too. Now Seth meets Maggie and they dream long & happy life.

This is where movie slumps from its mystic feel. Maggie meets an accident & she dies and you feel it was waste for Seth to become a human, now that his has lost his love of the lifetime. But Seth justifies his being human by saying that a day with Maggie was worth thousand lives. And the movie ends with Seth swimming in waves & enjoying the sea-shore in 'human' way while his fellow angels are listening to the music of sunshine.

I would rate it about 6 out of 10. Because the movie doesn't reach the climax of movies like Titanic. But the picturization is amazing. There are few side-stories where we get to see human emotions in different circumstances. For example, the scene in which a robber is looting a grocery shop. When he holds cashier at the gun point, what robber is thinking & what poor old cashier is thinking.

Overall, movie wins because of its novel concept & soft dreamy, romantic theme but loses its momentum at the end.

Compilation Error!

Today's fortune on Orkut: You and your partner will be happy in your life together.

[Compilation Error]: Variable 'partner' should be initialized first. :)

Guru

I just finished my summer finals and am resting in my bedroom listening to some soft rock. Looking back at the exam I just gave, I really didn't care much about how much I would score in it. Because the course itself wasn't much of value addition, contrary to what had thought earlier. Though the course was 'advanced algorithms' and the syllabus was quite 'advanced', professor ruined it completely. He would never tell us why he is doing what he is doing, always relying on meaningless theoretical deductions. For a course related to algorithms, this question becomes extremely important. He killed our interest in the subject. Anyways this actually prompts me to write about the best teacher I have encountered in my student life, till now.

I have to go back back to the days of my 7th grade. We have something called state level 'scholarship' exam in 7th grade. Its an optional exam that assesses your mathematical, language & reasoning skills. I always knew that I would be appearing for it, because I had performed very well in previous such exam in 4th grade(34th among 100,000 students). And so I joined Bhagwat Madam's tuition.

The tuition started in the beginning of school year, every morning 8 to 10:30 followed by 11 to 5 school. For initial 2-3 months, I didn't have much interest, or I wasn't enjoying the tuition very much. First because, I had to get up quite early (7 AM), when my other classmates were still in bed. Secondly, there used to be daily homework and regular tasks like memorizing tables, cubes, squares (for math skills), reading proverbs, idioms (for linguistic skills). And even though there were lot of new things to learn and I was (and still am) good at grasping them, it wasn't clicking.

But afterwords I somehow started enjoying it. May be because I realized, I can do it and can do it really well. There were challenging questions almost everyday, and it was real fun learning something new and understanding learned things in a new way. I happened to be really good at languages, despite my pathetic hand-writing. I would really enjoy writing essays, letters and to include relevant (sometimes irrelevant ;) ) idioms & proverbs, in them.

By the end of that year, a news came that our the scholarship exam, which was suppose to happen in coming February, was postponed to April, just before 7th grade finals. It was both good & bad news. That meant I had very less time to prepare for finals, but I could spend and enjoy more time at class. By the end of March, madam's confidence in me was so increased that she declared that if I top in languages paper, she would give me some cash reward. My handwriting was my weak point. No matter how much I tried to improve it wasn't as good as that of toppers. For all other papers, hand-writing wasn't an issue because it was an MCQ exam.

I distinctly remember the exam day. I had done my best & I just had to go there and deliver it. First was languages paper. I wrote essays first and started solving MCQs. After sometime, I realized that exam supervisor was standing behind me and is reading my essay. I was startled, but that lady was all praise for my essay. Such a thing is kind of a morale booster in those tense moments.

Math, and reasoning papers were also good. Math was bit different that time, which surprised many, but not me. I was pretty much prepared for anything. The exam was over, and I started preparing for my finals.

Results came somewhere in June or July. I knew that I hadn't done bad. But just to be prepared for worst results, I didn't hope much. As it turned out, I was fourth in my school and 16th in entire Mumbai city, among 100,000 students appeared that year. And no, I didn't top languages paper, but as a consolation I had topped Math, at least in my school. Needless to say, we were overjoyed and our madam was very happy to see her efforts bearing fruits.

Now, you would think, whats the point in remembering so small and old moments. But these moments are precious for me. They have helped me coping up when I was down and out. They told me that I had done it once, I can do it again.

The role of Bhagwat madam here was to bring the best out of me and to help me find out what I really liked. Such should be every teacher. A teacher you think of when Guru-Pournima comes.

Quote of the day

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

- John Wooden

Quote of the day

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.

-Walter Lippmann

Citizen Journalism

Google Desktop has nice CNN IBN live TV gadget. It has made it possible for me to catch up evening India news during my morning tea time. :)

Anyways, CNN IBN has come up with new concept called 'citizen journalism'. There is debate whether they invented it, or they made it famous. But that is not my point. The motive is to give platform to common people who are working on social, political issues, fighting for their rights, trying to put forth their views. I really don't know how comprehensive & inclusive this program is, because I have seen only one episode. But that episode was good enough to make positive first impression.

Personally, I find CNN IBN neutral and controlled news channel. Rajdeep Sardesai has done really good job. I heard that NDTV is also a good news channel, but I haven't had chance to watch it. Now a days, many news channels have made news-reporting nothing but sensationalism. When their reporters read news, I only see bloodhounds trying to bark their hearts out. (Sorry for such wicked comparison, but I can't help).

Anyways, these are side-effects of having free but uncontrolled media. I try to please myself by ignoring the 'uncontrolled' side. :)

Quote of the day

Hesitating to act because the whole vision might not be achieved, or because others do not yet share it, is an attitude that only hinders progress.

Mahatma Gandhi

Quote of the day

If he takes you to it, He takes you through it.

Politics of Principles, for a change

I read this article published in Hindustan Times about ongoing confrontations between UPA government and Left parties. Both sides, Manmohan Singh from UPA and Prakash Karat from Left seem to be holding on to their principles regardless of the possible harm it may cause to their parties in upcoming elections.

In an age of vote politics, it looks like a welcome change, or rather exception.

Here's the complete article:

The Kamikaze Approach

Quote of the day

Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do someting and you don't talk back.

-W.K. Hope

Aai

On the occasion of mother's day, a tribute to my mom - who is not in this world but has always been in my heart.

Aai - Kavi Yashavant

---

Aai - Kavi Fa. Mu. Shinde

Quotes of the week

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
- Albert Einstein

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The real voyage of discovery consists not in making new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Kishore Kumar

There are some voices in this world which are immortal. Kishore Kumar's voice is one of them. It has got an amazing quality. It doesn't sound like a voice of some music maestro, showing his prowess and astounding you. It is a voice of ordinary, idyllic fellow, humming casually, unaware of surroundings. It has got that trueness in it, that always touches your heart. We all can sing his numbers with equal ease, without fearing any musical mishap. His lyrics grooves in with the tunes so naturally that you don't require pains of remembering tunes.

You'll see what I am saying when you watch this song. Hats off to mast-kalandar Kishore Kumar.

Lucky Ali

Now a days I have started liking Lucky Ali. Not that, I didn't like his songs before. But now a days I have started re-appreciating the beauty of his songs and their meaningful wordings. Commonality in almost all of his songs is his distinctive music style (which I cannot put in words, being an illiterate in this field), and his husky carefree voice.

On reading his biography, I came to know that he is actually an avid traveler as he portrays in most of his songs.
Moving from one place to another, appreciating the distinctness of those places, still detached from everything. His lyrics are meaningful, still very simple and are easy to hum.

I guess, one more reason I love his songs now a days is, his staying-away-from-home-and-missing-it-too-much theme. I can imagine myself there singing, roaming on those streets. :)

His music videos aren't posh or flashy. But they have a rustic touch which brings you closer to his songs.

To finish off my post, I leave you with one of my favorite numbers by Lucky Ali - Anjani Rahon Mein. (Translation - In strange streets...)

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Orlando - fun part

In Orlando

Writing after so many days again.

We have spring break this week. So to get the most out of it, we packed our bags and flew to Orlando, FL. Though main reason was career fair, it is nice place if you time & money to spend.

For first two days we were busy with career fair and all. Nice experience. You get to talk to so many great companies at same place. You get to make value connections which would be helpful in near or far future. But physically it is extremely tiring. You don't just have to talk to companies you have to impress them. Plus there are so many companies. Plus you have to be in business attire whole day (which engineers are not used to). To add to all these woes my shoes were unhappy with me. Biting me all the time. It becomes painfully difficult to keep smile on your face when you are legs are hurting, your mouth is parched, you don't get time for supper, your back is aching, and you have to repeat everything you had said hundreds of times.

But above all, it taught me a lot. It was worth coming here. Hopefully, something good will come out of this.

For next three days, we are gonna have hell lot of fun...

So you could expect something about Orlando on my blog in coming week.

4 Q's

This one was told by one of my professors at UT Arlington. His name is Dr. David Kung. He is a gem of a person. Passionate towards Software Engineering. And one of the 'true' teachers around who would not only teach whats in books but would also enlighten us about the encyclopedia called life.

We used to have his lectures in early morning. (11 AM is early morning for engineers :) ) In every lecture he would tell us about his experiences, his professional life, how & why to follow your heart while choosing your career, his integrity, how to face challenges and much more.

In one of his lectures, he told us about 4 important Quotients of life that determine what kind of person one is.

1. Intelligent Quotient - Much talked about quotient. aka aptitude.
2. Emotional Quotient - now a days it is gaining importance.
3. Risk taking Quotient - this determines how successful a person becomes. He told us why he chose to study software engineering, even though it was budding and not so popular field at that time.

And last but the most important

4. Integrity Quotient - How to be true to yourself. You might achieve fame, success, money; but if you are not integral to yourself, all that is waste. You won't be happy, no matter how much you pretend to be.

Hmmm... I am always gonna remember that...

I believe everyone should get such a teacher at early stage of life. Such teachers can really influence entire lifetime.

My signature...

I have been pathetically bad when it comes to hand-writing. Thanks to my friend Siddhesh Ayre, I could flaunt a classic signature of mine.



Visit http://www.mylivesignature.com/ to get one for you.

New blog on technology

Check out & comment on my new technology blog.

http://blog.uta.edu/~svs4741

Karma Yoga

Work causes attachment.
Attachment causes bondage.
Bondage causes unhappiness.

Devotion gives you bliss.
Devotion with detachment gives you peace.

So, work with devotion & detachment.

Thats Karma-yoga for you.

Thought

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles Develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender that is strength.

Be strong.

A thought

Aikave janache, karave manache

Meaning: Listen to people. But follow your heart.

Thought of the day

Become like a swan. Just as swan separates milk from the mixture of milk and water, try to see good things around. Ignore bad things. Try to learn from everybody you encounter. Everybody has something special that we can learn.

There is Marathi proverb on same lines:

Ghenaryane ghet jave; Denaryane det jaave,
Ghenaryane gheta gheta denaryache haat ghyavet.


Meaning: When you are blessed by nicehearted people, try to be like them. i.e. try to take that good virtue from them.

Do you ever get this feeling?

Do you ever feel that there is so much to do, so much to enjoy, so much to live for. On one side, I feel excited about these boundless opportunities. But on the other side I feel that I might not be able to enjoy or do all things I would like to.

If only there were 50 hours to each day... :)

Quote of the day

Don't argue with fools. They lower you to their level and beat you with experience.

-Confucious

Quote of the day

Don't think you are. Know you are.

(Reiterating for myself)