Tag Archives: Questions

A friend you wish you made…

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We travelled together for two years by the same train, everyday. Speechless, our exchanges were pleasant smiles. The appreciation for each other grew day by day, it at least seemed to me. The day had come when we were separated; I was transferred to a far off location on an official appointment. Commute to office was part of routine, and so was my silent friend on the commute. Commute was still there, but the friend missed. It felt inside deep that I at least should have attempted to know who he was. The niggle remained!

Time gives us the power to procrastinate. I did not develop many friends on the new commute, and two years passed with the rut of work occupying the active part of my head. The heart, as always, wanted to do things, but time never gave itself to me. Not an excuse for not making friends, but that is the nature of time. It binds us all in one string and keeps moving us at its will, whence we meet others and leave some others, thinking we are getting into relationships at our will. Alas! If only there was one who could show not in time how time operated.

Another transfer now, and this became usual. Job role has changed, life has moved on, responsibilities have grown, relationships complicated, friends who were were far, and still work went on. Wallet and warmth decide our value in society, or so I headed to fill wallet. Warmth was a delta in that equation. But then time has its game and I became a pawn to realize the value of delta.

That day, I needed to bring business from a prospective client. Unlike other deals, this was a make or break situation for getting on to the next step in my career. With lots of preparation I went in. Heart pounding, I knew that to be successful everyone needs a bit of luck. If you think otherwise, read history books again! I wished luck to come my way for today. I was at the office waiting to meet the prospect…

Two hours passed, and here he came and went. In a moment of confusion, surprise, thrill, I recall it was that speechless friend I made on my commute years back. The questions in my mind seemed to be of huge magnitude:

Will he recognize me? Even if he does, will he help me? Ah, how I wish I made him a friend then? First real interaction with him, how does he start it?

Minute seemed longer, probably because time is controlled by questions we ask ourselves, at least relatively. And I got a call to meet him and discuss the deal…

Semester Moments Assorted

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Phew! As I solve the eleventh hour queries of students troubled with what is gobbled up through the course of a semester, I found few challenging ones that observed my attention. Curse or thank the mediocrity of those instant guides that are popularly used every examination season; I have learnt a point or two more within my subject, not because they had better lessons, but they had problems confounded in such manner that they forced me to explore more. So, here we go with the three questions:

Question One: Why do we select the point of intersection that is closest to the horizontal axis when we solve games using graphical method?

Question Two: In a transportation problem, why do we form a circuit when we want to identify how much the allocation should be modified and where?

Question Three: If we talk of Six sigma, is it really about accommodating six standard deviations in the process or should it be about reducing the absolute standard deviation?

Goodness me, there is some talent out there.

That is not all I had this semester. There were a couple of embarrassing moments that is attributed to the efforts to try and over teach (not so desirable) and to the efforts of trying to explain the fundamentals more than required (no so needed, I find now). The first moment, I missed computing the standard deviation and got the problem wrong, and it took me a second after stepping out of the class to identify what mistake I committed. But the twenty minutes I struggled in the class remains an experience. On the second moment, I explained game theory very convincingly through out only spoiling one last procedure. I had forgotten substituting calculated values in the original equations to find out the whole range of values required.

If you think these were silly, I am assuming (actually I shouldn’t hope) the students caught more than what I had known myself committing in lectures.

If I were to mention one significant learning from this semester of teaching, I would say it, but it would not be ground-breaking. I figured out that supplying material to students prior to the class is as effective as supplying no material. The later can at least save me some time and energy.

What would I be doing next semester? I am eagerly planning things.

Dream and Work

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He looked at the lifeless toy and clapped in excitement. It was perhaps the amusement of seeing an engineering marvel function in ways that his child brain could not grasp. He grew up to be an expert in creating such engineering wonders. No wrong if one thought he was passionate in what he does.

Years of hardwork went into giving shape to his dreams. His mighty machine was ready to work, to give light to the world, a new direction to science. Just like when he was a kid, all he had to do now was to push the button. His mind was on a high and his heart thumped heavier inside. With a minute long hold of breath he suddenly released, he pushed the button. The expectation of seeing his machine work was much higher than the playful act of assembling his toys expecting them to do something. Seconds after he pushed the button, he realized something was not right! His heart now thumped faster. Hands moved in all directions, eyes looked all around, brain wandered across years of effort to find where he could have missed the link to make this machine work. His feet felt lighter; trembling, his body was all down on his knees the next minute. Answers were not to be found. Their nature is to go missing when they are most required!

Sorrow, silence and disbelief took over for the next few moments. Fleeting emotions were hurting more than the hope that the machine might work if he just found something trivial he feels he missed. How does hope diminish faster when we need it most? All positivity in the world seems selfish that it runs away when someone seeks it. Eventually, rage took over his mind.

And just like a kid, in that spur of the moment, he hit the machine hard. Another moment of disbelief struck him as the machine began working its might. A few more fleeting emotions, brighter this time; and again, like positivity is selfish, when he did not seek it now, it comes back. The smile decorates his face. He walks away proudly, the winner.

One question remains for us. Was it his childish belief and his passion that made the machine work, or was it his knowledge of where to hit the machine that made it work? He keeps walking away, doubtless in his dreams.

Keep dreaming. Keep working.

No expectation. No getting it!

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Induction is a tough process for those who are organizing it. To manage large crowd of parents with their confused kids who took admission into some college–now trying to figure out if their decision was wise–is indeed a challenging task. Challenging as I say, I would guess, means something different from what you may be thinking. You will figure it out by the time you finish reading this post. To start, let me just recollect and phrase down here, the proceedings of today’s induction for the new batch of MBA students at MVGR College of Engineering.

Session started at 10:30 AM with the Vice-Principal, Assistant Principals, and Head of the Department of Management talking about the increasing opportunities for students with professional qualification like an MBA, and how good the college is in providing various things that students might want to have. I am in consensus with what they had to say, not because I work there now, but because I joined there only after knowing fully well that they are the best around this geographical region. Good thing about this session, it ended in exactly forty minutes, as was planned earlier.

Session two was where the course and its curriculum was explained to the audience with a mix of cautionary messages and encouraging words. Each faculty member was allowed to present themselves to the audience and share their opinion about what the course was about, and what makes the students successfully get through it. I went one step ahead in the flow holding that mike–shared my concerns that the younger generation does not exhibit dignity of labour which I think is an essential qualification above all to be successful in life.

Session three. Challenge begins! The Head of the Department invited parents to share their views from what had happened till then, raise queries if any, or give suggestions if they had any. For about ten minutes it happened, and suddenly it started looking as if someone was begging for a response. Each faculty member started jumping in to somehow elicit a movement in the parent community among the audience, but that with least success. The action went on for another fifteen minutes after which I fundamentally decided that these parents surrendered their right to free speech elsewhere, or they must have reserved it for some other occasions. Since no parent turns up, and since it might be offensive to call them up on the stage, we had to ask the students to share their views. It takes another ten minutes of motivational discourse, about six students introduced who they were and said they were happy to have joined this institution.

Do you see what the challenge is!? I am afraid I have to say this.

Parents. If you don’t have any expectation, suggestion, or a view about anything that is happening around you, it leaves me with an impression about the kind of grooming your kid might have got, a continuous dose of ignorance. And now, I am afraid that if you don’t have any expectation, that puts us–teachers–in a position where we do not exactly know what we have to deal with or deliver. I suggest you. Next time you come to our college, please open up and at least have the willingness to ask what is happening, and if you can, go on to express your views about what you are learning or what you want us to learn. Unless you begin talking, please do not expect us to teach your kids to talk. Because, I (and anyone in the world with some social sense) would blame their failures, if any, on poor parenting before I put the blame on bad teaching. Please understand that teaching is no substitute to parenting.

Look at the irony I discover at the end of this post. Even with an expectation and effort, we could not get what we wanted today. Just imagine what could have been the case with an induction that did not even give such a chance, or that induction which has not even thought of such an idea–a platform to exchange views.

Asking a question

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I answered a few questions prompted on Plinky. Over time, I found out that these questions made me think; and think about a lot of things! I had new questions springing up in my mind every time I answered a question in there. For a difference, I wanted to ask a question that I found difficult to answer. This was to see how people respond, and learn from it.

My question was ‘Name someone who has significantly influenced the way you see the world‘. It was a difficult question to answer because there are so many who have walked in and out of my life giving me drops and sometimes streams of wisdom. There are quite a lot of others who stick with me to make me realize relationships are priority to wisdom. To name one of them was thus really troubling.

Thanks to Plinky! First of all, they found my question sufficiently interesting to post it as a day’s prompt. Secondly, there were people who answered this question (about 40 of them when I saw. Read the answers here). Most of the answers indicated that parents/spouse influence one’s perspective most. May be, that is a wrong answer, but surely I think that is the answer that can restore peace between ears. A few answers spoke about god, which I believe is a matter of faith more than love. Other answers named professionals, perhaps from their fields, to have influenced them most. I assume this is because they had their profession in their mind while reading the question. So, though that might be a genuine answer, that may not be what you tend to rely on when you retrospect to find out who you are and how you have become.

I have too many people to name, for those who have made me who I am. But yes, if I were to answer my question, I would put my parents and my wife on top of everybody else.

Identity Concerns

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Earlier, I had shared my concern about online identity, especially sharing phone numbers. You can read that post here. Yesterday, I was reading this article which mentioned that there are an average 1,40,000 students affected by identity theft each year. In a few related posts, I identified that annually there are close to 1.8 Million Britons falling victims for varied forms of identity thefts. Another report woes that there is a thirty-two percent increase in identity theft in UK alone for 2009. If you think these reports don’t have anything to do with India, and that we might be safe, read a fellow blogger here. He claims that the telecom companies sell their customers’ data (and blames a reputed company, which I might not buy on its face value!). On a more credible note, read this article from The Financial Express; it says that India has two major problems, one being too much identification, and the other being too little privacy. I am amazed about how the latter can be such a big problem in a nation that gives personal privacy as a constitutional right.

Why am I saying all this? Simple! Look at a mail I have received in my inbox today.

Whoever (I do not believe the person is actually using his/her original name, because there is too little identity on that name on internet) has written this mail, claims that they are about to get the data of all students who have given their entrance examinations. A huge database that can be for sure! But, isn’t it then silly to think of ideas like a Do-Not-Disturb registration in that case. Thinking of it, I am pushed to believe that DND is just a game to postpone the act of not-breaching-our-privacy. If not, why does it take forty-five days for a mobile number to be registered in that list, while any offer by the telecom company can be activated in a matter of seconds.

A few questions are keeping my mind busy now. First of them, is personal privacy really a constitutional right, and if so, can I claim it is breached in cases when companies like these push spam into my inbox? Second, are there legally promoted ways of hacking personal information? Because the mail in context claims confidently that they would be getting the information soon, but does not mention how. I would be shocked to learn if the respective organizations, like the ones who conduct these mass entrance examinations, actually make the data available for buying. Because, again I might want them to give me an option where I can ask them to keep my information confidential–by the way, where are the covenants about confidentiality gone in agreements which I might be able to use for any legal furtherance. All this is just so disturbing!

By the way, my intention in posting this is not to attack someone personally, or blame the system completely, but an honest beginning in understanding how data gets leaked.