A nice poem to welcome New Year !

This Too Shall Pass

If I can endure for this minute Whatever is happening to me, No matter how heavy my heart is Or how dark the moment may be- If I can remain calm and quiet With all the world crashing about me, Secure in the knowledge God loves me When everyone else seems to doubt me- If I can but keep on believing What I know in my heart to be true, That darkness will fade with the morning And that this will pass away, too- Then nothing in life can defeat me For as long as this knowledge remains I can suffer whatever is happening For I know God will break all of the chains That are binding me tight in the darkness And trying to fill me with fear- For there is no night without dawning And I know that my morning is near. ...Helen Steiner Rice

PostScript: A short story on the same title is in my other blog Short Stories. Check it out. More things on New Year coming up next

Announcing the New Arrival at our home ...

We proundly announce the new arrival at our home...

As computers have become the most important entity in our lives, it is with great pleasure that we decided to increase our family size by adopting one more computer. The specifications are as follows :


MOTHER board : Asus
FATHER chip : AMD athlon
Face : Acer LCD monitor
Memory : 1 GB
Storage : 160 GB

Child weighs normal and seems to recognise sound and light. Its tail (mouse) and fingers (key board) are fine and healthy till date.

(Here is Vennila posing with the new arrival. Sibling rivalry hasn't started yet. Don't miss photograph sent by Petra from Germany as wallpaper and Bharani's wonderful painting of Tiruvannamalai temple as wallhanging.)

The main reason for this new arrival is our decision to migrate to open source and free software. For the last one week, we are almost Free. Ubuntu 7.10 is charming and enjoying the steep learning curve on everything related to linux. But, miles to go ...

Courtesy, the loan of Rs.20000 taken from the office and Tarsh's help to buy the parts in Bangalore, we got the computer. Like the saying in Tamil goes, after buying the elephant, we didn't have money to buy the chain. So, had to borrow again to buy the computer table and the UPS.

All is well right now.

Pure and Isolated...

"The more pure and isolated you are, the more sterile you get", says Veenapani Chawla, artistic director and managing director of Adishakti.

If this statement were to be true, I shall be one of the most sterile persons. Totally lost touch with any of my relatives. (The only relatives I know of are my parents and sister !) Occasional emails and still rare phone calls to some college friends. That's it. Haven't attended any family weddings for ages. Left to my wife, mother and sister to take care of all that PR work in life - as is my father, I guess.

But, am I isolated ? Least of all. During the last fifteen years, life has become quite public. I mean, there isn't much private things going on in life. The line between personal life and professional life, of course, is quite blurred in Gudalur. Enjoying it thoroughly, extremely busy and generally having a freak out time.

There are hundred odd people in our team - a heady mix of some not-so-literate field level staff, top of the shelf technical professionals, old and young, men (sigh) and women (wow) and what not ! Isolated from outside world, yes. But, this lively group is a world by itself with all sorts of people, talents and wonderful moments.

It is a conscious choice to shut the door to the 'mainstream' world. Peace of mind is guaranteed, only if the impure of the other world is isolated and kept away. Occasional visits / exposure to the cities, to life being led by friends and relatives just reinforces this thought.

Someone asked, how do I motivate myself to stay in a small place like this and continue to work here for so long ? I said, "The trick is, actually, to go out once in a while."

One trip to Chennai or Bangalore is enough to keep me motivated to stay in Gudalur and work here for ever. The only place I want to go is my mother's village. After a short stop in Chennai for a few hours last week, I thought, "I will give my left arm to stay away from Metropolis". The best way to see big towns is in photographs, I am convinced.

Sterile ? Far from it. At the cost of sounding bombastic, I think, I am most creative and productive, only when I remain pure and isolated from the other influences. There is enough and more to learn from the people around, from newspaper and most importantly, from the web. Learning new languages, teaching computers to adults who have studied only upto 8th standard, negotiating with insurance company top brass, designing posters on tuberculosis, writing screenplay for documentaries, finding the missing 1 paise in balance sheets, calculating the full moon and new moon details for the next year (to design our calendar), answering questions from children in UK ... It is a cocktail of brilliant experiences. All sitting here in a valley called Gudalur.

I wonder whether I would have learnt the thousand things that I learnt in Gudalur if I had taken up a job requiring to stay in a big city with lot of exposure, requiring lot of travel and meeting lot of different people and what not.

That is why, I totally disagree with the rubbish about pure and isolation and sterile and all that stuff.

Mathematics is like LOVE !

Math is like LOVE. You know why. It is also a simple idea but it can get complicated.

Being good with numbers is nothing to do with being a good Mathematician. You are supposed to have a 'logical' mind. Mathematicians think totally differently from all of us normal mortals.

When 3 people are supposed to be in a room, but actually 5 came out of the room, what will you (or me for that matter) say ? We may say, "oh ! something wrong with my calculation.." or " how come ?" or at least "it is strange".


But, you know, what a mathematician will say ? "Now 2 more people have to go inside to make the room empty !" See, that is what I meant by a logical mind. Sometimes, they are too brilliant. They discover something, but don't know, what for. You may come across a news item, something line the one below. Don't bother, it is just some mathematician at work, that is all.

Mathematicians have announced the existence of a new whole number which lies between 27 and 28. "We don't know why it's there or what it does," says Cambridge mathematician, Dr. Hilliard Haliard, "we only know that it doesn't behave properly when put into equations, and that it is divisible by six, though only once."

While trying to understand the Prime Numbers, read some nice stuff about them. Here are a few :

• You know what seems odd to me? Numbers that aren't divisible by two.
  

• 2 is the only even number that is prime. It is odd, isn't it ?

• In Alaska, where it gets very cold, pi is only 3.00, instead of the normal 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510. As you know, everything shrinks in the cold. They call it Eskimo Pi.
  

Prime Time

The math faculty decided they got to woo few first year students. So, they they made a television commercial to show how exciting mathematics can be. To get the biggest audience, it was scheduled at prime time:

2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 7 o'clock and 11 o'clock.

• The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10.
  

Now, here is a tip on how to make your offspring good in Maths.

A ten year old boy was failing math. His parents tried everything from tutors to hypnosis, but to no avail. Finally, at the insistence of a family friend, they decided to enroll their son in a private Catholic school.


After the first day, the boy's parents were surprised when he walked in after school with a stern, focused and very determined expression on his face, and went right past them straight to his room, where he quietly closed the door.

For nearly two hours he toiled away in his room - with math books strewn about his desk and the surrounding floor. He emerged long enough to eat, and after quickly cleaning his plate, went straight back to his room, closed the door, and worked feverishly at his studies until bedtime.

This pattern continued ceaselessly until it was time for the first quarter report card.

The boy walked in with his report card -- unopened -- laid it on the dinner table and went straight to his room. Cautiously, his mother opened it, and to her amazement, she saw a bright red "A" under the subject of MATH. Overjoyed, she and her husband rushed into their son's room, thrilled at his remarkable progress.

"Was it the nuns that did it?", the father asked. The boy only shook his head and said, "No."

"Was it the one-on-one tutoring? The peer-mentoring?"

"No."

"The textbooks? The teachers? The curriculum?"

"Nope," said the son. "On that first day, when I walked in the front door and saw that guy they nailed to the 'plus sign,' I just knew they meant business!"

And, finally, here is what Mathematicians have to say about Mathematics !

If any of you meet this Oswald Veblen of 1924, you can tell him from my side that he is an ass.

See you later. In the meantime, be a good mathematician.

God's Grace - delivered at your door step

I am one of the big admirers of the postal department, now being branded as India Post. So, I was delighted to read this news this month.

Holy Ash by Post

Devotees of Lord Kashi Vishwanath across India have reason to rejoice as they will now be getting the holy ash ("vibhuti") and other articles from the famous temple at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh delivered right at their door step.

This has been made possible by the Department of Posts that has joined hands with Kashi Vishwanath Mandir Trust to deliver the "vibhuti" and other articles by post anywhere in India - round the year.

I wonder what else can be sent through our wonderful postal system - besides God's grace and the holy ash, of course ! In my College days, quite a few things. Saree. Chains made of cheap beads. Even Diwali sweets to the office team in Gudalur once.

Once I was a voracious writer of letters. Wrote a Gujarati letter in IRMA days, using a 'Rapidex - Learn Gujarati in 30 days" book, I think, to Vandana. Wrote a Malayalam written to Rema Menon soon after coming to Gudalur. Major achievements, now when I think.

When I lived in the adivasi areas of Andhra Pradesh for three years, it was wonderful to see the 'Runners' of the postal department in those really remote places. For every twenty kilometres or so, there will be a carrying the postal bags, containing just a couple of cards, and hand it over to another runner. Almost like a relay team.

Often there weren't any mails, but the runners studiously have to carry the empty bags and exchange it with the other person for another, possibly, empty bag. As I was getting terrific mails from home and friends in Boithili, the remote village, I was thankful for these postmen and the gratitude stays till date.

Some years ago, the red post boxes were ubiquitous even in small villages. Often they were some sort of landmark too. But, today they are fast disappearing because of the private courier operators - so do the STD telephone booths due to cellphones.

There is a charm in public institutions providing communication services to remote places. I like the idea that it is the State's responsibility to ensure that people stay in touch with each other. I am hoping to revive the "tradition" of hand-written mails from New Year 2008 !

Anyone cares to get such letters ?

Public Bathroom

Thanks to Broadband, there are many nice video clips that we have access to.

See this really funny one called Public Bathroom.

And, this one about the Crazy Traffic in India.

YouTube is revolutionising personal publishing. Getting lots of ideas to use video clippings for our work. Durga made a small video on Anaemia - Now we can make our own films on Health Education ! Time is the only constraint now ...

Is there any software that can expand the day, if we click (I am willing to even double-click) into say, 50 hours ?

Customer is God ?

Recently read this in the newspapers :

ICICI fined Rs. 50 lakh

The Delhi consumer commission fined the ICICI bank a whopping Rs. 50 lakh for employing "goons" to recover loan. It deplored the practice of the banks intimidating consumers to pay the instalments.

The commission also ordered the ICICI to pay Rs. 5 lakh to a consumer, who was mercilessly beaten up by the recovery agents. They snatched a loaned car from him.

When Consumer Satisfaction and repeat customers are considered to be the most important mantra of the modern management gurus, how can this bank do something like this ? This is not the first or last incident of ICICI doing something like this.

Juxtapose this to the quote (famously being displayed in different shops and institutions - including our Gudalur branch of the State Bank of India) of Mahatma Gandhi on Consumers :

"A Customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work.He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is a part of it.

We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so."

I was curious about this Gandhi quote on Consumers and the way modern business is exploiting this quote. I am sure Gandhi would not have imagined that his statement will be displayed prominently in a, say, reliance show room. I tend to think that he would have meant the whole concept of 'service' or 'seva' when he talked about consumers. That is, if at all he had said something like this.

I am embarrassed to see Gandhi's quote in big business or in a shopping mall. To assume that the modern business exists to provide 'seva' to the customers is too far fetched. When the motto is to suck up the 'fortune' available even 'at the bottom of the pyramid', customer service is just another tool to increase sales. It is not an attitude, as Gandhi would have articulated.

It is as good as saying, ICICI exists to facilitate our people buying cars (read the news item once again).

After due consideration, I came to the conclusion that this is just "Twisting things and putting words into Gandhi's mouth"

Finally, when we see some of the salesmen or service providers complaining that their customers ask too many questions, it may be better to refer them to this quote by Sam Walton :

"The customer has all the answers…
and, importantly, all the money…”

There is a cartoon that goes well with the news on ICICI bank :

What almost every woman knows sooner or later

I have a lot of things to say about Gender - being a living example of why gender activism is needed today. Look out this space for more on gender issues - through my limited vision (probably considered 'narrow' by professional gender specialists).

To start with, let us enjoy this nice poem written by I-don't-know-who.

HUSBANDS

Husbands are things that wives
have to get used to putting up with
And with whom they breakfast
with and sup with

They interfere with the discipline
of nurseries
And forget
anniversaries

And when they have been
particularly remiss
They think they can
cure everything
with a great big kiss

How do you like that ? Came across this nice advertisement for a book. The cover page itself is quite illustrative !!