Connecting the future dots

Remember me talking about connecting dots in general and connecting the future dots and how sometimes I have intuition about what's going to happen next by looking at what's happening today. Well I just had a moment yesterday which I would like to share.

For past one year, I am struggling with a questions, "Should I pursue PhD and become Professor after MS or should I start a business after MS?". I am exploring each of these two options by talking with Professors, reading about latest research, and by participating in forthcoming Boston Startup Weekend etc. Yesterday I just happen to attend a technical colloquium at my Computer Science Department on topic based on Forensic analysis of P2P system for Child Pornography. It was interesting topic and the speaker Swagatika Prusty presented it well and handled the questions clearly. I liked it. I learned something new. After the presentation, the usual practice of few audiences forming a circle around the speaker and participating in the discussion happened and I joined the league. There were random topics mostly concentrated around what was presented and then we moved on to career. One from the audience was a Professor from my department and asked the speaker (which if you have noticed is only a second year Master's student at UMASS Amherst) whether she would like to pursue PhD? To which she responded that she is yet not decided but would prefer to be a doctorate student only to be interrupted by the Professor "unless you land a fat paying job" to everyone's humor. Then he spoke about his life, how he was in Israeli army at young age, then went on to start a business where he made good money and told his mother that he doesn't see why he should attend college considering he is already earning quite well. To which her mother responded "You are stupid" which mentally tormented him and he joined college obtaining his bachelors degree and realized that "it is so much fun" and enrolled for Masters degree which again he realized "This is so much fun" and rest all is history.

Now, the story part is over. Next phase that went into my head is, why is the professor speaking about his career decisions, why did I meet another student who is in dilemma of doing PhD or not, why am I here amongst all the infinite possibility and how come each of these things are happening when I am suppose to go for a startup event on coming weekend. Well, Steve Jobs said you can connect the dots by only looking backward and he is absolutely right because connecting the future dots is only probabilistic in nature. Getting obsessed about connecting future dots can make someone dogmatic but I would recommend that he/she should just take it as some form of information and continue doing their daily routines and when the final day of making a choice comes, use these pointers along with regular pros & cons rationality. Making future look like the way you want will disturb the natural order making the future connections only fraud.

Do share your story if you happen to experience the same.

Have a wonderful future

Amit

P.S. I feel so relaxed after writing this topic because I was waiting for a long time for an event to happen naturally where I can make future connections and talk to my readers about it.

I love you Mac

Its been just few days(Got on 8/26, today is 08/29) since I got my first apple product Apple MacBook Pro and I am already loving it. Couple of things makes it amazingly wonderful.

1. Mac OS is a Linux Flavor which makes it virus free and fast. I always wanted to move out of Windows due to its pricing and too much control over user.

2. MacBook Pro is no nonsense system. It doesnt even have unnecessary stickers of Intel Processor/Graphics Card/Apple either.

3. There is a unknown territory (Mac Commands Vs. Windows) and requires few days of learning but after that it is smooth ride. Online reference will help you get started quickly.

4. People who worry about softwares which comes only with Windows installer, look harder for Mac and you should be able to find one. Between MS Office is available for Mac OS too or you can choose OpenOffice to do your Word/Excel/Visio task at zero cost.

5. You dont have to shut down your system completely. Just close the lid and it goes into sleep mode which saves your battery more than Windows sleep. It is safe till now.

6. The power adapter is bidirectional which helps in accommodating to any situation and not struggle with it.

7. Display is very good. Processor is fast and dude you dont have to worry about unnecessary software notifications. Mac OS takes care for you that.

The list is good enough for anyone to be convinced. I just trusted one of my close friend's advise.

Take Care
Amit

Why pay 94 when I can have better at 6

Today I went for my irregular Saturday BIAL trip. Initially I thought of giving up the idea and doing something else like running but then I thought cycling will be less painful :P.

So I started at 8:10 am empty stomach but soon realized that I am gasping for air as my wind-pipe is all frozen and I need to have something hot. I stopped en-route and had tea in a roadside tea-stall and resumed my ride. This time I was using sports-tracker app on my Nokia S60 cell to measure my efficiency. I took 1 hr to reach my destination. After reaching there I decided to execute my plan of having capachino and to my surprise I paid 94 bucks which led me thinking. Half way to drinking my coffee I realized that too much of it is only going to dehydrate me and hence left the rest and asked for "normal-water" to CCD guy. He said "We serve only bottled water" which again left me cursing them in mind. I went to adjacent shop Just-Booster and asked for water. Very reluctantly I got a small cup of water which I thanked him and drank it earnestly. I started my ride back home but within meters I felt that I need more water and inquired the parking-lot guy about normal drinking water. You may find me miser by not shelling out money for a bottled water but I don't want to encourage myself with that as I feel normal water is good enough.

He asked me to go to the canteen and gave me directions. Initially I thought he is sending me back to CCD but as the target came closer, I had a eureka moment. I saw one clean and hygienic restaurant of shanti-sagar type. I was too happy to see something like this in an International Airport but was quizzed with why is this place in a secluded location and reasoned that the government doesn't want the international travelers to know about how less-costly are basic food here in India. Anyways, forget all these rant of mine. I had my water and also garma-garam Idli. It was amazingly good. I then started off back to home ride and with all pride I have to say that I took 15 minutes lesser than what I took earlier. Coming back home I had hot water bath and had payasam and some sleep :).

For few, who are eager to know where the place is, it is just behind the "Pay & Use Toilet" at BIAL. Dont worry, it may sound dirty but take my word, it is very clean and Hygenic. Ask for Parking-Cafe at BIAL to some ground staff and you should get it easily. As said, why pay 94 when I can have better at 6 :)

Happy Reading.
-Amit

My Golden Rule for my Life.

For a long time, I have been thinking of coming up with some smart bullet points like those in corporates which will act as my magic mantra I will lead my life by. So I have something to discuss about it now.

To prevent making a second mistake of same time, I started jotting down my experience with first in my journal so that it could act as lighthouse in case I happen to be lost in the same situation.Surprisingly, the number of mistakes have out numbered with what I initially expected out of my level of imperfection and it is hard to keep a note of them or categorize them, so lately I stumbled upon the idea of these bullet points which will be short (not in pages) and will act as quick reference in most of my crisis situation. These will be time tested formulas and I will be adhering to them with blind faith as going through the whole process of brainstorming the possibilities is painful if the conclusion drawn ends up being the same with what I learnt from my earlier crisis, which in most of the case is true.

Please note that, these formulas or magic mantras are tested on specimen called Amit Choudhary so its applicability for you or your girlfriend may not hold true. Kindly use discretion while using them. Apart from above reasoning, I also understand that any kind of rigidity is only expected to bring staleness in life so there is still a hope of challenging the presently proposed mantras and adding a new to the list or creating a whole new one in the future if the present goes invalid.

So, here's those guiding angles which created so much of buzz in my head and now in yours
1. Every second of sincere work is worth it.

2. Misery is permanent. So don't give damn to Misery, enjoy your life, enjoy your work.

3. Be Honest. It surely pays. Little dishonesty in pity matters (professional and life threating is not pity. Lying about dinner or whereabout qualifies) is OK.

4. Be Smart with what you write to others. It surely comes back.

5. I don't claim to be smart and hence I don't mind doing mistakes.

6. Keep a good circle of friends.They are needed to discuss your concerns and booze with.

7. Humility and Helping others will take me farther.

8. Accept others the way they are. Let them change by themselves.

9. Never loose faith in yourself. You know what is right and you don't need certification from others to believe in it but yes just get it reviewed to make sure you are not missing any link.

10. You may wish to review the above 9 points once again.

So dear fellas, what's your take on this.

After 45 dusk.

Dawn -> Dusk -> Dawn -> Dusk -> Dawn -> Dusk -> Dawn -> Dusk -> ..........

Days passed by, change was continuous and someone evolved from something to some other thing. With a wide gap of 45 days, I am penning down my thoughts or better to say got time to reflect upon my past. During this period it was sharpest change I have ever experienced in my life. It was a change from a heedless to mindful, from self-first to family-first, from MS to MBA and with less friends to more friends.

During this period I was home (my native : Dhanbad) for 15 days (Remember I missed the IIIT Bangalore interview ) and trying to catch up with my missed festival feasts and family members. The journey of flight from Bangalore to Kolkata was boring but the forward journey from Howrah to Dhanbad in a local was mind boggling. The commotion and seat sharing reminded me of my old days when I used to have similar flavor.

My mother hugged me with warmheartedness. To my surprise it took me more than 10 mins to recognize my own house where I have spend 10 years of my childhood. The culprit was the 20 months of gap in two consecutive visit to home. I started feeling culpable and in hurried steps was searching all the rooms of my house to extract the hidden past so that I can build my childhood castle around it.

Then what followed was a series of events belonging to specific classes (C++ term). Meeting sisters and family relatives, getting pestered to marry soon and giving a helping hand to my mother in her daily chores. In midst of all these obvious events was a romantic one. I met my long time crush for whom I fought with another suitor in Class 5. It took time for me to recognize her but she was more quick to respond. She is still the same. Studious and sweet. Though she recently got married I have all well-wishes for her from every corner of my heart.

How can I miss to mention my waggling thoughts all time about whether to pursue management or technical as my career. I find it hard to belief today but then in a short span of every 2 hours I used to switch my side with equally strong arguments. Each moment it was ringing in my head, whether at sleep or at wake moments. My head was over exercising to search for the answer and that irked me at few moments.

I bought a new digital camera for my parents (with my father's money though as he didn't allow me to spend mine). It is Canon IXUS model for 11200 rupees. It was great buy and now they are using it quite effectively by capturing all the happy moments at home. Even I took some great ones of mine :).

With one of these dawn, it was end of my honeymoon period at home and it was time to get back to my mundane work life. My journey from Howrah to Bangalore in train was the most dreadful one. I booked side lower anticipating some personnel time and speedy air against my face at window seat. I was complete heart break and distraught when I witnessed "Side Middle" berth in today's Indian Railways seating arrangement. To describe about this experience might take another blog so I just want to end it here mentioning something which I repeatedly told myself through out the journey and smiled. It is "You asked for little fun, God gave you more than that".

I was back to Bangalore and felt at home. The weather at two places was contrast. What followed next few days was getting used to my routine office and finally I made up my mind to pursue MBA. Reasons.... aplenty.

EMI

The title of this post is inspired by a Bollywood movie sharing same name. I happen to be neglecting to watch this flick for quite some time just because the print was not of good. quality But, today I decided to go for it as pass time during my dinner.



The movie revolves around the life of people in debt with home loans, personnel loans and credit card loans. It shows how much pain and embarrassment loan recovery agent inflict upon defaulters. It staged how a husband and wife plan to divorce due to unbearable pressure of monthly EMIs. In one case, a father takes 10 lakhs to fund his son's foreign MBA studies where the son later drops out in the middle of the course only to see one day how his dad is humiliated by these recovery goons.

Truly, lives of several people is loosing peace because of the desires to have more than what one's means allow due to peers pressure or uncontrolled desires. Also, after watching the movie I felt a sense of relief and calmness thinking that "Good that I did not pursued my MS else I would have ended up taking more than 8 lakhs loan and my entire family's life and peace would have been now mortgaged.

Today, again I have made up my mind not to pursue any plan if its cost is more than 3 lakh loan but rather be satisfied with low risk pursuit so that the welfare of my family is taken care with peace. God I wish all families who are seething under the pain of loan to get out of it and live at peace.
AMEN !!

I am Critical Mass

I was already a mass when I was born but today I became a part of critical mass of my country who has got some responsibility to shoulder (Thoda Gyada ho gaya). Today (28th March 2009) will be considered as my first baby step to add force to already rolling ball of "SAVE EARTH" of moving to alternative mode of transport which is pollution free and keeps your waistline slim. Well I am talking about bicycle as an alternate option which I have been religiously adhering to for past 3 months by commuting to my work which is close to 5 KM (3.1 miles) from my house. Thanks to Bala who motivated me to take this up.

So what is special about today?

Ahha... Today was Critical Mass day in Bangalore. By Critical Mass Day I mean, it is a day which is celebrated every last Saturday of the month where a group of amateur or veteran cyclist, cycle in city and create awareness about bicycle riding as feasible option. It was my maiden tour as I have been missing the earlier ones because of silly reasons which I don't want to remember and make fool of myself.

This time, we met in Cubbon Park where the total count reached 74 cyclist including few women and a cute looking baby girl on her kid-cycle with supported back wheel and a young boy of close to 8 yrs old on a regular bike. It was a great mix of personalities. I was lucky enough to locate my two office colleagues Mathew (the Veteran) and Manu (the Sports maniac) among the mass. Also I started exchanging hands with other people and there was not an iota of discomfort.



Ek baat kehna toh mein bhool hee gaya (I forgot one detail to mention)

We also had Sharada from Arghyam who did a great job by helping us know the quality of water we consume at home by arranging a set of sceinticfic kits and also gave all of us a Biological H2S Strip test kit as gratis. He took great effort and all the people who got water samples ( I got it too from my landlady) has their water tested. Great Service to nation Sharada. God Bless you !!

How can I forget Prashant Mohanty. The man who all time was cracking PJ's and howling at his best voice not to forget he is among the founders so the rest abt him we can discuss in private :).

We began our journey close to 4:30 pm. towards North Bangalore (I felt so good. It was towards my house). Some placards and posters and media attention made it a paparazzi stuff. We headed towards Sainki Tank and then further ahead towards Malleswaram. In the midst we has few stops where we waited for few who strayed from the flock. The quizzed and smiling faces of onlookers was good enough proof that we are making an impression in their mind and a question "What am I waiting for?" to ponder over.

We had our first bike salute (you hold your bike upright) near a temple. The pujaris too came out to bless the good cause and the by-passers thumped Up.

It was coming to an end. We reached a quite location to catch up with air and water. There was an introduction session and I hardly remember 10 names. I am sorry about it but my memory capacity is already full. I have been long planning to get a PHD (Portable Hard Disk). Then what followed was some serious discussion (culprit : Prashant) where he discussed about sharing responsibilities of coming critical mass and more personnel commitment from all of us by means of taking care of blog and coming with self made posters. We all agreed unanimously like primary school kids :)

Finally people started leaving in groups in the direction of their homes. With Sriram, Prashant, Igy and others we planned to eat Idli and have Tea. I was dying to eat something as I didnt had anything since morning. Somehow I missed :P. (The one with "V" is me)

On my return journey my front break wire got torn and I was driving more cautiously back home only to dash on my bed and find myself again starving at 9:45 p.m. Well I did celebrated Earth Day.. No lights between 8:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m (except my punkah was fanning , :P).

On a pleasent note : I feel blessed to meet you all and making good friends and also kudos to organizers.

Note : To know more about Critical Mass Bangalore click here

Happy Riding,
Amit

Yuva

युवा

हे युवा

कुछ कर

कुछ आदित्य , कुछ अनूपम, कुछ निर्नात्मक

जो इतिहास के पन्ने में, स्वर्ण अक्षरो में

हो तुम्हारा नाम

अपितु कल ज़िन्दगी तुझसे हिसाब मांगे

और तू अगले ही पल अनंत चिंता में

****** अमित चौधरी********

Chromosome ends and human health and disease

The title may seem daunting to most people thinking what on world do I know about chromosomes and is here to speak of. Gladly, I must appreciate your understanding of my brief (10^-100) knowledge about biology science of chromosomes.

It was Monday and with no extra strain to your brain, it was my office day. I was not feeling well for the past few days and hence decided to take rest instead of going to office and working in air conditioned facility thereby aggravating my bad health. I went out for my lunch and on my way back purchased news papers comprising of The Hindu, The Times of India and DNA (The motive was to do comparative study of available news papers so that I can form a decision about what to order to my vendor). Surprisingly, an ad at the 3rd page of The Hindu caught my attention where it showed a lady (no surprise, right!!) standing quite confidently. I became interested to read. I realized that the lady is a great scientist in the world of biology with great awards to her list.
I found myself in a dilemma because just few minutes back I decided to finish few topics in C++ programming language on account of free time I was having but this news made me think and I asked one question to myself, "How important is this seminar for you?". Back came the reply, " I can study C++ tomorrow but I cannot attend a seminar by someone so esteemed later in life. If I miss this opportunity I will not get the next one. Also its an opportunity to be in an academic setting for few hours which will rejuvenate my eagerness to learn". With this answer I executed my plan and left for the venue on my Mercedes (my beloved bicycle) at around 3:45 p.m. I reached the venue (IISc, Bangalore) at around 4:05 p.m. and was surprised to see that the J.N.Tata auditorium was getting packed with the progress of time. It was the after long time (the first being at IIT Techfest 2005) when I was seeing an auditorium packed with human beings for some science topic apart from normal multiplex audi's.

The program started at its prescribed time of 4:30 p.m. With a brief introduction about the speaker (which I liked) Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn took on the podium. One thing which I have observed in the scientific world that people are highly cordial and they speak soft unlike in management or industry setting where it is usually louder. Also the academicians are seen smiling and speaking with great inner peace which I have always adored. Maybe the reason could be the ecstasy they are always in as a result of the pursuit of knowledge.

She started her topic with a picture of an old Indian lady (I am sure she took someone Indian so that we can easily relate to her) and a curt question of "Why do aging occur?". With the progress of the presentation she elaborated on how our chromosomes plays and important part in aging process. The two important terms she was emphasizing about were telomere and telomerase. How shortening of chromosomes makes some one susceptible to diseases like heart attack, aging and other known diseases. It was though very interesting to know that smoking plays a big role in decreasing the life span of user as it impedes the chromosomes duplicating capacity. Also with her research she was able to proof that chronic stress (be it related to married life, Job or exam etc..) highly contributes to malfunctioning of chromosomes leading to early death or associated medical complications.

It was a new experience for me where I was getting exposed to a complete unknown branch of sceince and though I couldn't compete with someone with biology background, I think I was able to assimilate 20 % of the information while the rest got lost in some interim day dreaming and unknown terms.

Some of the interim thinking/day dreaming I was doing was (i) Can I be someday as good as her ? (ii) Is research my calling ? (iii) Will I be getting calls from universities for my MS? (iv) What if someone bomb the auditorium and lastly (v) There are some really good looking girls in the halls. Will I be meeting such beautiful ladies while I be pursuing my PhD and do I still stand a chance? :)

KnowHow Air Kiss :)

The wikipedia starts with "The air kiss is a ritual or social gesture whose meaning is basically the same as that of many forms of kissing." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_kiss). This act of kissing is mostly seen in movies and in celebrity shows where the two parties do some strange act of kissing in air. I was never interested to know about it until the moment which made me to do some brief research on its details.

An old friend of mine is expected to see me and I will be meeting her after long time. After completing a brief planning of her visit, I came across a strange doubt. "Should I hug her or should I just handshake her ?"

I don't want to get too close to her and make the situation uncomfortable for both of us and nor do I want to give her cold welcome. Then a sudden idea of the "strange act" came to my mind. After doing some Google on the world wide web I came across this video which very lucidly explains the theory and demonstrates elegantly the idea of kissing in air. I am sure everyone of us might come across a similar dilemma someday but take my word, this social gesture is not at all rough but a very educated way to express your warm welcome to the other party.

I am herein posting the 70% video as my free video converter do not allow 100% conversion. The link of the video is at the bottom and you can use that to see the remaining..

Please do leave a comment on what is your idea of this situation and how would you react to it. Well, let me see how it turns out in my case ;)

Check out the video here :)



Click here to go access the complete wiki article and video


Happy Kissing...Muaaaah !!

Bicycle : Past, Present.....

Months of delay and self-doubts imprisoned my mind before I breaked through it, leaving my comfort zone and looking forward to experience nostalgia. My long cheriesh desire of having a sophisticated bike got realized this Wednesday (24th Dec.,'08) when one fine morning I made up my mind of not letting my waist size go beyond 34'' and give a tough fight to the pump inside my stomach.

Here's a peom on Bicycle

There were cathedrals falling out of your eyes
And your arms were the handlebars
I held in an abbreviated dream of crushed petals
Strewn across the limpid avenues.

I said, “I have poems for you”
But my words were lost in the wind.
I said, “I love you”
And you drifted into sleep.

And so I said nothing and rode you in and out of the rooms
Where we had stretched the boundaries of the soul
Like an endless sheet
And I felt you waking up between my legs.

Noelle Kocot




“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving” A. Einstien

Dasvidanya sued for copyright violation

I never realized how could someone steal my story without my consent. Do you know any lawyer ?

Dasvidanya, is story of my life. It is about me and my "Things to Do" habit. Not every morning but yes quite frequently I make my "Things to do" list which may comprise of post-it notes or notepad document on my office desktop. Also, I swear how closely the writer peeped into my personal life and noted it's minute details.

I have a 4 girls in my life who became a part of it and I cannot clear the impressions they left. It reminds me of how I still feel about one of my school day girl, the one for whom I fought with my competitor in class 5 and even got thrashings from my class teacher with badminton racket. I adore her till today. The office life of Mr. Amar reminds me of my complacent nature of agreeing to most of people and never fighting for my own right. I was never weak but non-violence became my nature without even me noticing it. Actor wishes reminds me of my own which I hold to myself and how they have taken back seat and grooming my career took front. My first wish to learn painting, my second to go and study at IIT, learning tabla, guitar, violin , keeping good health with regular excercise and so on have become unknown to my life. How I neglected the beauty of nature and hardly remember when I saw last sun rise or sun set. My family and my friends are great asset in my life and how I silently adore them in darkness. My brother, who is more than just a blood relation but more of my friend and my love for him is as much as a mother have for her child.

The anger that lies dormant in him, the smile that covers most of his face all time and a restless mind is the characterestic of Amar. The wish for Foreign trip holds close to both of the hearts. I am speechless. I am dumb not knowing how to react or what transformation should I bring to my life to make it truly lively else rightly commented, "You died long back, this chart is just the print out"

Dasvidanya :)