My Thoughts...

The Story of India ....

2009-10-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

Viewing documentaries has become a favorite obsession of mine recently. I recently watched a great documentary by "BBC" titled "The story of India". This documentary talks about Indian civilization and how once a rich civilization got invaded by different rulers.

This documentary is divided into seven parts, giving invasions from Romans, Muslim, Agfan, British etc. Discusses the notion of a rich India and its importance to west. The silk, spices, fertile land of South, the trades, kings and their dynasties etc. Discusses the cultures as present in Southern India, the temples and their history. Kings like Chandragupt Mourya, Ashoka, Chol dynasty kinds like RajaRaja etc and how different kings had different views in terms of religion, culture, vision, humanity etc. Talks about the impact they had on then people in terms of the way they rules and the different cities of India like Varanasi, Patna, Ayodhya and their religious importance. Talks about philosophy of life and different religions like Hindu, Budhism, Sikhism, Muslim etc and how these religions spread during course of time during different periods of history and the effect it had. In short this is a great documentary which makes ones think on the way things happened in past and the reasons why they happened that way.

While I was watching this documentary, I was carefully analyzing different questions that were occurring to me. Questions like why caste system spread, questions like why India is so poor, why we are so divided in so many different aspects, why their is difference between west and India and why Education is still not a basic right in India. How cultures such as Tamil culture influence religious sentiments and how strong the religious influence could be. Why different cultures prevail in India and how managing India as politically managing all these things is a herculean task. I also happened to read a book by Infosys cofounder Mr. Nandan Nilekani "Imagining India" recently. It talked about the India as it is since it gained Independence and how different transitions in Indian politics happened in due course of time. Watching this documentary made some points even clearer as this documentary stops exactly where Mr. Nilekani starts.

History as I look back at it now, seems a lot fascinating and interesting. Especially with abundance of documentaries made available through file sharing networks like bit torrent. Many observations occur to me like, shouldn't history be retaught to some extent when we are grown up, during our formal years at professional schools? It is largely said that it is during our school years as children that we imbibe lot of values, which we carry as future citizens. We learn many lessons from history but are we really mature enough to understand what is being taught in our schools? We learn civics and lot of social subjects during our schools. But as I recall now, I really did not understand many things that were taught in civics, and feel intrigued by lot of questions. How interesting it would be to have some such experiments like documentaries and other things which are made possible by technology, to be retaught in professional environments. Often when we grow, we tend to get intrigued by many questions, which I feel could be answered if we take a hard look at the history the way it happened and could learn some lessons.
Egypt, Rome, Greek, India, China all had their own say in history. How many of us have really learned about Hindu religion? Or for that matter any religion. I now understand why in the history books some kings were called eminent scholars, because they possessed any immense quest for knowledge and for wisdom. While watching these documentaries I many times end up recalling lot of questions and memories of some passages of history lessons, that I once had, when I was a young kid in school. And I am so much fascinated again, by history that I really want to read all of it, as much as I could. I am sure, I will find lot of answers to lot of my questions, while I re-read / watch it.

Different civilizations, different kings, different rulers, eminent personalities, different religions all had some lessons to give to us, from where we could learn a lot. Lot of our miseries could be solved by learning from them. Point is do we care enough to really understand that many of the questions that we want answers for are right here? We just need to take a hard and wise introspect to find the answers for them. And we will be more wise.

Let the history prevail....

Happy Dipavali :)

2009-10-16T11:30:00.000-07:00

Some festivals are really special. I love Diwali. I love different shades of Diwali that I have seen so far from different angles.

Diwali in hostel life when I was in school. Diwali when I was at home for brief time. Diwali at Santa Cruz. Diwali at the new place in Mountain View with different set of friends. Different types. Different nature. Different celebrations with different people.

As a child I never understood importance of Diwali or any festival, since we are not that much of a religious family. All the enthusiasm I had seen so far was with my mom, when she used to take utter pain in decorating house, lighting it up, doing all the things like Pooja etc. Or how some of my friends were so cheerful in school hostel days on occasions of Ganesh Chaturthi etc. Some how I was a lot aloof in those days. I guess because I had no reference with me to compare. I guess because I had lacked the large family feel which celebrates festivals with equal zest and cheerfulness with lots of relatives and friends. I today understand importance of good relatives and a great friend circle and the people whom you grow up with. These are the people who shape up you as you grow and these are the people whom you look upto and seek motivation. If there is something wrong with this support system, things get messed up pretty nicely. I guess, very few families are blessed with good cheerful atmosphere filled with lot of relatives who are equally good and lots of friends and elders to look upto. I understand the great importance of this support system and how I missed many of these things. And these realizations happen because I have been going through lot of personal transitions lately, by staying in company of diverse people of different cultures and traditions, since I landed in US. Stay in US has done a great favor to me in terms of all this since staying in India, its very hard to understand and get this exposure. I am so happy I am understanding lot of such things.

Hostel life had also taken a toll on my capability of understanding of all the concepts of bonding, festivals, get togethers etc. I think I craved heavily for emotions always, which I did not understand then as a child. Well its good that I at least understand all this now :) Better late than never :) Once there is realization and awareness, somethings could be done, lack of awareness and even if that awareness is there then personal ego, is the cause of many miseries we constantly see around.

Diwali in hostel is something I frankly do not recall at all. I so damn curse my memory for it. Diwali in Deogad was good. Lighting up entire house with electric bulbs, then lighting up colony. Mom used to take so much pain in doing so many things. How I regret now not able to do and understand importance of things then. But I guess, me and my brother seriously lacked company of equal aged children with us, which makes a childhood really special. Small families and staying in a small village have these serious drawbacks I guess. There is tremendous lack of exposure in terms of many things. Diwali in Pune was good, but it lacked the grandiose nature I guess that it could have had. We mostly enjoyed the lightening crackers that were burst by others in Pune skyline from our 6th floor terrace. Again, there was lack of friends in Pune of same age, since we did not grew up in Pune and were there just as students and then during job stay. Again, I did not realize the importance of Diwali then and festivals then.

Diwali in Santa Cruz was awesome. We had a great small Indian group of around 10-15 students. Bengali people were prominent in here. Followed by South Brahmins and some north Indian public. Well cultured Bengalis are extremely cheerful. They have an aura around them. They are sweet. Almost all the students in Santa Cruz were PhD students and mostly couples of my own age. It is here where I really understood importance of families, bondings, couples, festivals, culture and all the happiness life carries other than the professional life. How well cultured and educated families bring more exposure and hold ties together. How the thinking maturity appears even in celebrations and how life could be so peaceful if is present in correct set of people. First year Diwali was great, where we did potluck dinner, pooja, danced, enjoyed. Second year Diwali was even more awesome. There was an elaborate Pooja, which made me feel blessed with its peace and soothing touch. It is in Santa Cruz that I appeared for a course in Art of Living and understood how meditation could bring lot of changes in ones thinking methods. Those were some of the best days I had. We cooked dinner together on diwali night. I had eaten a well cooked full fledged dinner after lots of months and felt nothing could be more blissful than a life contained with good food :) I was so happy. I was in great elevated mood. Here is my blog entry from last Diwali night when I was extremely ecstatic.

And now I am here with again different set of people. These are all Maharashtrians and mainly all localites from Pune, who never had witnessed a life outside Pune till they came for Masters in US. Some of them grew up as friends since junior KG and till Masters in USA, to the extent that they shared same rooms :) What could be more blissful than this? These kids were brought up in great well cultured families which is reflected from just being with them. Who always tell the tales of how fun filled their childhood was with their parents and relatives that surrounded them mostly. Sometimes comparison comes to my mind with my own past. Its natural. I can not suppress those thoughts. Many times I feel, I so missed so many things unlike these kids, who always had some one to protect them, guide them and take care of them while they were growing up. It must have been a great childhood, complete with full fun and no responsibility at all. Pune is a great city to spend your childhood in by gone days. It had its own traditional charm which has started missing since it is becoming cosmopolitan, since introduction of IT. Every development comes at some cost.

Diwali here is going to be good. Surrounded by these great kids, who have an altogether different charm of their own. They enjoy, live every moment, are bonded greatly with their families and Maharashtrian traditions. Lack to some extent the miseries of bad world that lies outside and its problems. I am understanding a totally different way of living from them. It feels so good to be exposed to so many traditions, understand their importance and how they could make life cheerful. It feels bliss. Problems are there always, but occasional happiness that comes from such things, carries its memories for a long time and makes you extremely positive towards things that lie in future. You demand a better future for yourself and for everybody because if everybody around you would progress, then only you would be able to enjoy it with everybody.

Wish you and your family a very Happy & Prosperous Dipawali. May the blessings of Lord always be with you and may your life always sparkle with joy,happiness,peace,love & success. May you be blessed with all the happiness in the world and develop strength to combat the problems with vigor and great attitude.

-Mrunal

Gandhiji ...Will you come back for a day?

2009-10-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

An article by the famous youth author Chetan Bhagat in Times of India.

Dear
Gandhiji,

You left us 62 years ago. If you were still around, you would have been 140 years old. However, we have not forgotten you. You are on every banknote and most stamps. There are many statues of you. Prestigious roads in almost every city are named after you. Our politicians try to model themselves on you. They wear the fabric you promoted, they quote you at every instance, they've got a photograph of you in their office and some even eat and live like you. There are books, TV programmes and movies about you. Seriously, you'd be impressed at how much we still adore you.

However, there are things that won't make you feel proud. The India you spent all your life making free, is far from free. True, the white guys are gone. But there are still millions of poor people. In 60 years, we are still among the poorest nations on earth. This lack of money leads to a lot of problems in healthcare, infrastructure and education. In education, for instance, many children still don't go to a good school. Those who do, don't get into good colleges. And those who go to college, don't get good jobs. We need to get rich, and fast. Not only to make more schools and colleges, but also because most Indian problems are linked to lack of money. Yet, it is considered un-Indian to think that way. The young generation, which thinks like that, is considered materialistic and greedy. The older generation takes the moral high ground - slowness in work is termed patience, non-stop discussion and no action is called careful consideration and lack of improvement in standards of living is countered with claims about the need to live with austerity. And yes, in many cases politicians who speak like this claim to be your fanboys.

The younger generation wishes you could come down for one day and clarify these points. Is progress un-Indian? Is change bad? Is a desire to see my country as rich as some other nations materialistic? Is getting things done fast impatience? If you blessed our purpose of making a developed India, the job would become so much easier.

The young generation needs you down here for something else too. We have a new battle here, just like the one you fought with the British. The enemy is not so clear like it was in your case - the white people. Our enemy is the old school of thought, or rather the people who defend the old school of thought. They do this in the name of antique Indian policies, culture and values. You could help identify this enemy more clearly. Many people who are at the helm of affairs now have served India for decades, maybe with good intentions. But obviously, they don't want to accept they screwed up. We wish they would though and we'd have a national day of shame. It won't be easy, but from there we can make a new beginning. But they won't, for they are in power. And to defend themselves and their ways, they don't mind crushing the aspirations, ideas and talent of an entire generation.

Yes, there is a lot of talk of India being a young nation and youth power. However, youth power is the biggest myth going around India right now. Of course, youth has spending power - we can buy enough SIM cards, sneakers and fizzy drinks to keep many MNCs in business. But we do not have the power to change things. Can the youth get a new college opened? Can the youth ask the government to give tax incentives to MNCs to relocate jobs to smaller towns? No way. We are wooed, used but seldom heard. If you came down, you could unite us. You used religious festivals as social events and propagated your cause. You understood that people need entertainment to bind them. Perhaps, we could integrate colleges in the same way, link all colleges - maybe for their annual festivals - and the message of change could be channelled through them. We have amazing technology such as the Internet now.

You would use it so well. If the youth unites, there could actually be youth power.

With our purpose blessed, enemy identified and youth united - we could take the first steps towards the new Indian revolution. After all, China had one, and only after that, did they get on the path of true progress.

But if it is not feasible for you to come back, we'll have to try to bring about change ourselves. If we can be inspired to do that, we can say we have not forgotten you and understand the meaning of your birthday. We hope you had a good one up there!

Lots of love,
the younger generation
(also known as Youngistan, Gen X, Gen Next and Gen Y depending on the brand you're talking about)

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2009-09-28T11:51:00.001-07:00

Stay Hungry, Stay foolish - Motivational speech by Steve Jobs - CEO, Apple

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12,2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.The first story is about connecting the dots.I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months,butthen stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with,
and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one
good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be
priceless later on.

Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in
the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky ,I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple
in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out.When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from
Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

Appreciation

2009-09-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

I many times wonder why people fall short of appreciating things that deserve appreciation?

Appreciation is very good. Even if it means saying things are good even if they might not be great and outstanding. It helps build positivity and confidence and a feel good environment, which is beneficial for both the receiver as well as contributor. It gives motivation. It makes one feel being noticed and for however small time it might be, worthy of doing something that has some value.

We are humans. We stay in society. We depend on each other for different things. We constantly feel threatened by competition for better things. All it takes to keep moving forward in such a competitive world is a bit of notice of the work that you have done. Some positive words, some encouragement, some positive attitude that even though things might not be great, they will improve in the future with more hard work and concentration and dedication. A small note of appreciation can go in a long way to establish all these claims in the receivers mind. It will build a feeling of respect towards you, because you care to take a note of his/her work. Criticize if it has fault, but be constructive. Criticism is also a type of appreciation, though it might in a different sense, but still it conveys the main message, that Yes, somebody cares, my work is not a waste.

All it takes on ones part is to be frank and open minded and value the quality. You might be present in an environment where all the people around you are extremely ahead of you in terms of whatever you are doing. If in this kind of environment, you get neglected because you can not be on par with them, it could act as a major deterrent in that person progress and thinking attitude. But this is what that exactly happens in our society. People chase the bright, they chase the ones who are already established and could provide immediate benefits. Many a stories could be found where a small appreciation could have resulted in long lasting impression in ones mind.

Appreciation is good. It helps both parties. You do not do any good by discouraging a person who is trying to do something. The appreciation by you might result in a better confident attitude which might bring more talent, which might bring out hidden positivity. If you want to be better than your competitor do better work, build healthy competition. It will result everybody. The positives of appreciation are much higher than the negatives.

Try it. Be good to those who try and appreciate the efforts they take. Because all it takes on your part is some word, but it might be the only hopes the other person has in terms of moving ahead.

A Mentor ...

2009-09-23T20:21:00.000-07:00

Having a guide / mentor who helps you get the vision is one of the most important things that could happen to a person in one's life.

I always cry aloud on what is the importance of exposure and how it matters. A mentor kicks in exactly at this stage. He is the one who gives you the correct exposure to the outside world when you are still growing. When you are grasping for the newness of the outside world. Many people find mentors in their parents may be father / mother, many find them in their teacher, many in their Professors, many in the colleagues. The person may be different but the role stays the same.

Exceptionally fortunate are those kids, who are born in a family of well educated, well connected people where there is large awareness and exposure right from the early age, from the time when you are groping yourself with new child like enthusiasm and questions, the role of mentors grows manifold. Here is your chance to grow to your potential, develop intellectual curiosity, ask the right questions and most important get most of them answered in the most appropriate manner. Fortunate are those kids who get such early exposure.

Fortunate are those kids who get an outstanding teacher who makes them believe in themselves and in their abilities, when they will grow up to face the changing world. This teacher may not be at all well knowledgeable, what matters is how he makes you interested in whatever he knows and teaches. Such early stage development and confidence brings a lot of different attitude in a kid's mind later.

Getting a visionary Professor during ones formal higher education is equally important as this is where the "Big Vision" of what one wants to do in one's life later comes into picture. This is the critical stage when you can transform those ideas that were bubbling into real life work. This is where one can get correct guidance to what direction to go in one's life and what vision to have and how to achieve it. This is where you learn how to address the correct problems and how to find the correct solutions or at least make a sincere wise attempt towards them.

Exceptionally fortunate are those who get a spouse who is equally enthusiastic about his / her other halves interests and take pride in carrying them forward. He / She also acts as a mentor to guide you during your troubled times, when you need direction, when you seek some one so close to yourself to whom you can confide in your personal space and personal thoughts and on whom you can rely and trust when the entire world seems to be going against you.

Fortunate are those who get some mentor of some sort during atleast one of these stages. And I would say unfortunate are those who even after realizing the importance of these stages could not get one of these. Really unfortunate are those who even after getting one of these, could not make use of them for their betterment under their ego and over-confidence.

A correct mentor is very important. He / She can make your life great if you find the right one.

An Amazing Music Jam Session....

2009-09-20T01:15:00.000-07:00

Well this was a long cherished dream of mine. To play guitar in a full jam session with lots of instruments. And here it came true.

We had Flute, Harmonium, Synthesizer, Madelin, mouth organ and my guitar. Its been a long since I played. Almost not in great touch since last 2 years. But since I came to stay with these guys, I resumed my practice to try getting in shape. See, the point is if you want to play music, there has to be somebody along with you playing it too, to get inspired and motivated. You can not practice alone, after a point it gets monotonous and boring. Rohan, my new room mate is a pro dancer. He is dancing on lots of dance types like salsa, mamba, bollywood etc now for a long time. He was also a part of the cultural group that represented VIT (my undergrad college in Pune) for various cultural competitions like Firodiya Trophy etc. So point is he is very much into cultural activities. He arranged for a music jamming session on last weekend. (Weekends here are so awesome with cricket match, music playing etc etc). And I happened to go out to apartment of another friend of his. Now these guys in this apartment were also from Pune and were part of cultural group of PICT College in Pune. Three of them played almost every instrument that was present in there. ( It is my own theory that once you can play a single instrument, and once that music sense is developed, you can play any instrument if you have patience to learn them. I almost got to drumming in three months. The process becomes fast).

They had gathered all the above instruments at their place. So we 4 people were going to play and rest were singers or spectators. Total head count of 10 people. I was a bit skeptical as because I had lost practice I was a lot rusty and did not have stamina to play continuously. But once it started we went on and on. Well for those who do not know, it does not happen that you name a song and it can be played. For a player to play a song on some instrument, it has to be set early. Typically there are some common favorite songs like, ok, I will give the list later, which are common and well known. Well I used to play lot of songs before but over the time I forgot.

And it was awesome. Playing in co-ordination of all the instruments. Singing along with it. I always used to feel a rush of adrenaline in my blood whenever I used to see the singers sing or somebody playing some instrument on stage. But when I was in my undergrad I did not know how to play guitar, but I had an exceptionally strong desire for it. So even though I could not sing / play instrument during my college days (which I so regret, but that is fine, priorities were different then), I learned guitar for 3 years after my undergrad college ended and after I started job. It was too hectic to manage job and practise it daily in class. But somehow I managed to do it. Then I also managed to sing on stage during my company annual function (Song Ashwini Yena....) which was given best song award. No it was really good, people liked it a lot. But I still had this secret ambition of playing in almost full orchestra. And now I was here, playing it and enjoying it. It was awesome. I enjoyed it to the core.

We played.
1. Papa kahte hai
2. Pal (KK)
3. Dooba Dooba
4. Guncha
5. Purani Jeans
6. Summer of 69
7. Hotel California
8. Neele Neele Ambar pe
9. Do Dil mil rahen hai
10.Kuch na kaho ...

Well I forgot some other songs. Some exclusive instrumental songs like Malgudi days on flute, Yanni on Synthesizer etc. Deepak, Kaivalya and Ashutosh were the PICT guys, I was the VIT guy. Not all songs had all instruments but overall it was awesome fun and a great enjoyment. Had an awesome time.

I love music and I was learning "Blues" (its a type like jazz) on guitar when I had to discontinue it and come for MS. It feels so great to go back to good old days and live them again with same fervor. :)

-Mrunal

Leaving Santa Cruz

2009-09-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

I just left Santa Cruz and moved to Silicon Valley (30 miles away) to stay with some juniors from Pune whom I knew already since undergraduate days. Santa Cruz had been my home for last 2 years, where in my solitude I suffered and survived for a great deal of time. I had totally forgotten how nice it could be to be amongst people who speak your own language, who understand your own culture and who appreciate and understand what you talk.

I took a stroll in the city bus which used to take me to my school. I recalled all fond and most bitter memories of loneliness, the struggle and the feeling of helplessness that it always gave to me, when nobody was around. I recalled the great joys and mix of culture I witnessed while being with the only handful of Indians (Bengali's, South Indians, North Indians)present in my school during festivals, studies and how I tried keeping my spirits up and studied. I made some good friends amongst them. Learned a lot from their culture and how different it is from a Maharashtrian culture. I recalled the fond memories of going on beach, downtown to take a stroll in the evening and trying to keep my mood up when there was nobody to even talk to. I survived a patch of complete loneliness for more than 2 years. Santa Cruz as a place is great to stay, surreal and with best weather. But what is the use of a beautiful place if it is not with the people who know you or with people with whom you could not share things or talk to. I loved the town but somehow hated from bottom of my heart the loneliness. I appreciate being with people that I am right now, who know me, who understand me to some extent and who speak my language. Its a great feeling. Just a small talk and their presence takes away lot of depression. I recalled how hard I fought to just stay motivated out of depression of loneliness. The toughest time of my life was spent in here and I survived it. huh. This town will always be remembered for the things it taught to me to survive in a personal life. I troubled some close friends out of my loneliness so much that today I feel ashamed of it. But those were the times. Try staying in a place with tension of studies, cooking, finance, nobody to talk to and try stay motivated. Many times I recall I just used to forget who I am, why I am here for, what is my aim and do lot of nonsense because I many times used to be out of my mind. It was a very very tough period. I appreciate my people even more now.

I today understand how easy it is for most of the Indians who come to US for MS in bulk and stay in bulk together. I understand I missed this basic support system in its first place but it taught me the rules of survival. I missed lot of things which all these other enjoy and who really do not feel the taste of real US since they never really go out of their comfort zone of staying surrounded by their own people. They stay in groups, enjoy in groups. Believe me, having stayed in Santa Cruz, done that, its tough. Its very tough and a lot depressing to do all things alone. Just some 1 month ago a fellow PhD student got so much depressed that he left for India in its 4th year and dropped his PhD. There are lots of stories associated with Santa Cruz.

Bye bye Santa Cruz. You will be always very special with all the snaps and natural beauty and my 2 years at UC Santa Cruz. The place where I am at present, which is also called Silicon Valley is a very deserted place in terms of natural beauty, but it has lots of people. Well, now I understand the importance of lot of things. Somethings are better learn by the core experience of it and I think I am having enough of experiences. 5th to 10th in a hostel, 11th 12th in hostel, Engineering with room mates, Job with brother, Now MS at Santa Cruz. Lot of changes in life and continuous struggle. Sometimes I lose all the energy which is needed to stay motivated just by thinking about all this. Its a lot of pain.

Santa Cruz you will be missed very much dearly for all the things that you have given to me during this stay. Your memories will be cherished with the photographs for the lifetime.

bye bye .....Miss you.
Mrunal

Being Buddha....

2009-07-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

I have been reading some Buddhist philosophy books lately. At present I am reading a book titled "A Lifetime of Peace", Essential writings by and about Thich Nhat Hanh. Its a lovely book which talks about peace, presence of mind, unhappiness, understanding, compassion etc. I am writing some excerpts here.

Understanding and love are not two things, but just one. Suppose your son wakes up one morning and sees that it is already quite late. He decides to wake up his younger sister, to give her enough time to eat breakfast before going to school. It happens that she grouchy and instead of saying, "Thank you for waking me up", she says, "Shut up! Leave me alone" and kicks him. He will probably get angry, thinking, "I woke her up nicely. Why did she kick me?". He may want to go to the kitchen and tell you about it, or even kick her back. But then he remembers that during the night his sister coughed a lot and he realizes that she must be sick. May be she has a cold, may be that is why she behaved so meanly. He is not angry any more. At that moment, there is a Buddh in him. He understands, he is awake. When you understand you can not help but love. You can not get angry. To develop understanding, you have to practise looking at all living things with the eyes of compassion. When you understand you love. And when you love, naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.

Some one who is awake, who knows, who understands is called a Buddha. Buddha is in every one of us. We can become awake, understanding, and also loving. I often tell children that if their mother or father is very understanding and loving, working, taking care of the family, smiling, being lovely, like a flower they can say "Mommy, (or Daddy), you are all Buddha today. Two thousand five hundred years ago, there was a person who practiced in a way that his understanding and love became perfected, and everyone in the world recognized him as Buddha. His name was Siddhartha. When Siddhartha was very young, he began to think that the life had a lot of suffering in it, that people do not love each other enough, do not understand each other enough. So he left his home to go to the forest to practice meditation, breathing and smiling. He became a monk and he tried to practice in order to develop his awakening, his understanding and his love to the highest level .............

Another paragraph says something like following.

The way to liberate yourself is to look deeply into the nature of the guilt and self hatred and see the seeds of the suffering, your ancestors, your parents, and the violence and the lack of understanding in our society and its institutions. If you went to Vietnam on a war as a soldier, your actions were dictated by those forces. That is also true of those who opposed the war. (He is talking about how Americans attacked and did a war with Vietnam).

The seeds of suffering come from many directions. When your parents conceived you, you already had many seeds of happiness and suffering handed down by your ancestors. In your mother's womb, you received more seeds. If your parents were not happy together, you received seeds of sufferings.

As you grew up, if your parents argued and made each other unhappy, you received those seeds of sufferings too. If your parents were alcoholic, they made you suffer. IF your father abused you, you suffered. Violent films, sex and TV programs also watered the seeds of fears and hatred in you. By the time you became a soldier, you were already filled with sufferings. Then in the army you were told that the Vietnamese were beasts and you had to kill them. You can not kill another human being without visualising him as a beast. The mass media reinforced this image, watering the seeds of hatred and fear in order to help you kill. So many seeds of violence were watered before you were a soldier and during the time you were a soldier.

With such a heritage of suffering, it is no surprise that you committed atrocities during the war. You knew you could be killed any time. You saw your friends killed in ambushes. You became more and more angry and more afraid. You may have killed children and women. You may have raped women or destroyed villages out of this fear, hatred and rage that were pouring into you from so many directions. If you committed atrocities in Vietnam, if was the act of everyone. Your father, your mother, the press, the media, the society, the commander, everone who watered the seeds of anger in you so that you could kill.

Well the excerpts end here.

I like such thoughts. They make me think and they make us think. I like to write them here, because many times all that is needed to awaken people is to guide them or to tell them some real things like this which could make them think.

I used to create and commit so many acts of foolishness before. For example calling on the phone and without understanding the situation other person could be in, assume things. More close we get in terms of communication, more barriers we might commit too. I troubled many people with such acts. But most of them always stood by me with patience. Today I understand many mistakes. Some things are realized only by age.

I like Buddish philosophy and I hope to read it more from more such books. This monk has written some nice books and I hope to read them all some time.

Travelling and I....continued

2009-07-21T01:19:00.000-07:00

I love to travel. I am a travel fanatic. These traveling posts are inspired by a friend of mine, who asked me to write about my travel experiences. Thanks a lot. I never knew it could be so fun. I am reliving those great moments again and I would keep on writing.

Many times I feel, if I were given a choice I would keep on traveling always. Visit new places. Meet new people. Experience new cultures and engross new experiences. "Into the wild" is one of my all time favorite movies. Its about a bright young 23something Harward graduate who abandons his family and chooses to travel and dreams about going to Alaska. Its a very nice and touching movie about how life could be so different for different people. Whenever I am tense, I feel like leaving everything behind, the relations, the responsibilities and just follow the hero of "Into the wild". Afterall its my life and I decide how to live it. I love that movie. It has a tragic end where the central character dies at the age of 25 in the forest after eating a non-edible fruit. Its sad. But its awesome.

I like to roam around with hippies a lot. Santa Cruz is a city of hippies. The motto of Santa Cruz is "Keep Santa Cruz weird". This is one of the best places to stay in United States with tourism in abundance and a great weather. I love this town. Just yesterday, I was taking a stroll on beach and I happened to meet a traveler who was traveling for last entire year. All he had was the motivation and the big backpack on his back. We chatted for almost half an hour. We discussed lots of things about his travel, about US about India. It was a great moment. He lived in New York and he was traveling across united states by taking free rides from people. Working in between for money. Sleeping on floors. He was in California for last 6 months and his journey was coming to almost end. He said, its painful, with no money, no telephone, not much dressing, no family, no girlfriend its hard. But I love it. The feeling of gazing at skies from the roof top of a hill with ocean beside you is beyond description. Its a heavenly feeling which only true souls can understand. I could related to so many things this guy was telling.

Traveling is so much fun. I remember my early school days when to get to my home town from my hostel during some breaks. I sometimes used to hitch hike if my bus was missed. Many times I had traveled in trucks with having conversation with truck drivers about different things. As a kid I used to love it since there was some kind of pride in it as I used to feel great to travel alone such long distance with so many strangers :) It was fun. I learned how to drive in 8th standard from my mom. I used to take pride in driving so early too :P haha. Some people take pride in so many different things. The good old days makes me nostalgic and I feel life was so cool and so relaxed as a child. There was so much of fun. There was so much enjoyment. Pure, joyous and innocent enjoyment which was not limited with some specific aspirations. Those days makes me feel too nostalgic.

So traveling was an integral part of life always. Be it in terms of treks or otherwise. How different were those days. How I passed through so many phases. How much I hate the current phase. I guess, age 25 to 30 is the worst age in a person's life since suddenly he is changing from that young boy to a mature adult with responsibilities. I hate this change. Traveling becomes less as the office space takes its toll. Still I manage to travel. Still I manage to enjoy my bit. Traveling in US could get monotonous after a point of time since many times the culture is uniform and except topologies nothing changes. Same food, same chains of hotels, same people, same language. So after a point you feel you do not want to. Atleast I feel that way. I feel travelling in India is way better than this. It is way hectic and troublesome. But are not these things called the experiences? I like it that way. The villlages, cultures, innocence, non exposure. So many things, so many differences. I love them.

Some day I wish I would be able to travel the entire world. Some day I wish I could roam around without any worries behind me. Gazing at stars lying on beach with moon by your side and the constant exploding of tides on shores, is a great feeling. I had done that once back in India. I want to do that again here, in Santa Cruz. I want to do so many things. I want to have so many things that managing all becomes really difficult :(

I wish, some day, I will have done most of them. I love it that way. Go and do what you want to do. Feel it. Experience the experience because tomorrow the same conditions might not stay the same. Life is so beautiful if seen with the correct set of eyes. I wonder why people spoil it with selfish attitudes. I wish so many things .....

Travelling and me...

2009-07-16T12:01:00.001-07:00

I have always loved traveling. I am a travel freak. I like to visit new places and roam aimlessly.

I had not traveled so much before till recently. All my travels till almost 1 year ago were limited to Maharashtra (In and around Pune) and Goa at the most. Why? Because I never had money as well as time. I always wanted to roam around. I always had the ambitions to see and visit so many new places. But all my life till now either I was busy studying or working, plus my parents were not retired by that time. So we could not go out mostly.

I remember the good old days when I used to roam around on my geared cycle around Pune. I used to cycle for almost 6 years extensively, right from 11th to my first job. I never had money to purchase a motorcycle or get indulged in fancy activities which many kids of my own age did. There always stays some kind of regret in heart that I could not enjoy the so called "Life" as an young teenager because of various reasons. But I guess that quality helped me in moving ahead of my peers and where I am at present is mostly because of all that hard work. Well, so I had familiarized myself with every nook and corner of Pune city and the places around it. I used to cycle as long as 30kms alone on my cycle, in a stretch sometimes just for fun. Visited Khadklawasla, Singhgad and many such places. All sweaty, tired and exhausted but with a great feeling in heart that yes, I cycled so much today. I used to cycle uphills for as long as 4kms, used to get so much tired many times that felt like no I will die the next moment if I peddle one more time :) Yet, I used to peddle, yet I used to push myself. I was an awesomely fitness freak. But I never enrolled into any fancy gym or paid excursion somehow. I always managed to do things in least amount of money. I used to swim so much once upon a time. Those were the best days of my life. The day I got my first job till I came for MS. I experienced so many different things. Got involved in so many activities. I myself am surprised how many things I used to do when I recall it slowly now. I am glad that I am writing this, because suddenly I realize that I had forgotten almost all that in the current hectic monotonous lifeless life that I am having here in US. It feels good to recall all the things and enjoy them. I was extremely disciplined. I grew up in a hostel since 5th standard because my native place did not have good education. I have so many fond experiences of my early childhood. I will write about it sometime. If I had to get up early morning 5.30 for a swim I did that daily. If I had to go to a guitar class continuosly for 3 years for 1 hour after my daily work in company was over. My instructor used to say he had never seen a dedicated person as me. I did that. In my life till now I never enrolled myself in a single coaching class except for the PCM classes I took from a professor of mine in 12th. I sometimes feel amazing about it. I did everything on my own. Engineering, MS and many other things. And the main reason I think for that is lack of money that we always had. Our parents never had enough money to sustain our fancies like many others kids parents did. But they always gave us best education and encouraged us and motivated our aspirations. I think I have this amazing quality of patience and dedication that sees me sailing through lot of difficult moments. I survived many rough patches and I will continue to. I have enough experiences for that I guess. Well, I am diverting from my actual topic but somewhere there I am feeling nice to write all this and recall all those great moments I once had. So I many times think all those things happened mainly after I got my first job. When I got some money of my own to spend on my own habits. What if I had good money while I was growing up? What if my family had good money to take care of many things that many kids which grow up in city always take for granted? I think I could have reached much much far ahead than where I am at present, because as I know my nature, I always wanted to do all this stuff but somehow lack of money put lot of curbs on lot of my ambitions. I feel somehow but that tremendous desire to have all this made me struggle and that makes me struggle.
Cool so let me get back, so once I used to travel extensively on my cycle. Period.

Then after my first job I purchased my first motorcycle. A Honda Unicorn. I did lot of information gathering about it before it was launched. I was the proud owner of a great bike that I loved so much. I took care of it like a baby of my own. It was no doubt one of the best maintained bike in Pune that even dealer used to acknowledge that. I remember I had faced tremendous problems (manufacturing defects) in that bike later and I had to sruggle a lot for getting them fixed. That struggle continued for 3 months and ended when a story of how the dealers were not addressing problems got published in one of the leading car magazines and then Honda India themselves contacted me and got everything fixed. The fixing was to the tune of 20,000 Rs. But the struggle was worth it. Bike was as smooth as cheese and I used it in the same good way till I came to US. Some how I can not stay with imperfections. I hate nonsense and ignorant behavior. I could not have rode that bike with the problems it was giving to me. Many times I visited my dealer as far as 5 times a week, because it was so frustrating. He was so bored of me. But I continued troubling him because it was his job. At the end I approached Autocar India and wrote an article in there about incompetence of the dealer. And then I received a VIP treatment from Honda, India. I guess nothing comes without a deep struggle and its deep in my blood. And I expect it from others around me. I can not take chalta hai attitude, which most Indians show. I hate it. This bike has lot of fond memories of long rides associated with it. I traveled 3,4 times to Bombay on it alone. I used to leave early in the morning by 6 and reach Thane by 9am. One stop in between at Khandala for around half an hour. I roamed many parts of Bombay and most of the Thane on this bike. Traveled to Yeur reserved forest, boriwali national park, andheri and many other places. The wind and the morning sun used to make me feel amazing on the route from Bombay to Pune. It was so young a feeling. How I miss all that today :( Today amongst all the married couple around me who travel in cars, I feel old. I feel demotivated. So anytime I see somebody on a motorbike here I feel like a childlike happiness. I traveled once on my bike to Deogad my home town near Goa, a distance of around 450km. With my brother. I once traveled the same distance on a Honda Activa and once on a Yamaha Libero. So quite a lot experience of long distance travel. I was so active :) It makes me feel so much proud that I did so many things once. Some day I will write a separate post on this alone. I did so many rides on this bike in and around pune and bombay.

All this makes me feel that coming to US and staying alone was the most deathning experience I had in my life till now. A look back at these 2 years makes me wonder how the hell I survived such a monotonous life here. It makes me feel dreadful about all the things that I had to go through. I traveled with my parents the entire south India in Dec 2008. That was a great experience. We were on road for continuous 8 days. We were out as a family after so many years. It was a great feeling. We visited Goa, karnataka, Keral, Tamilnadu and many prominent tourist places in these states. We sometimes slept in van to save on time. It was hell lot of hectic and tiring but at the end it was a great moment. I will write a separate post on that experience sometimes soon. I remember me taking off from Banglore to Bombay in a Volvo on last day of tour to save on some time and how dreadful my first Volvo experience was. The AC was not working, tire burst 3 times, driver was extremely rude. Huh, I spent 26 hours in that volvo and finally managed to reach Bombay somehow.

I am traveling extensively in US too. As soon I landed in US I was all alone, There was hardly anybody I knew here. I did not have a single friend. The only Indians that were present in the University were around 10. It was terrible. But I managed to make some friends amongst them. Went out with them on trips they planned. The US trips are very different from Indian trips. Most trips are done using rental cars where one rents a car from different rental companies and drives it on their own. Its a very systematic system and very convenient. Average rental per day varies from 30 to 150$ depending on type of car. I roamed in and around California with these people in the first year during my semester breaks. The studies were so tiring that that small outing used to feel like a huge blessing. I used to feel wow, such a great pleasure. I roamed around in major reserved forests and scenic locations around CA. Visited many beautiful beaches and gathered lot of experience on route. A post on that sometime. This post is more about my general habit of traveling. Most of these travels were not very costly and manageable for a student. I never had much money to spend on most of these. I saved a lot of money so that I can take some traveling out during my breaks. Average cost of the trip was around 100-150$ per person, with a group of around 5,6 friends.

I always wanted to see New York and experience its culture. Some very good friends of mine work in New York and so I visited it in March 2008. It was a fast decision. I did not think much because I knew if I would think I would not go to visit it. I spent my entire Spring break of 9 days in visiting New York and east coast cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New Jercy. I roamed New York for 4 days. People were like what is there to see in New York for 4 days? I am like I like it that way. I clicked lot of snaps experience the core New York culture to its fully. It was a great fun. I stayed at two friends place who made sure my stay was extremely comfortable. Some where while I was visiting these places I always remembered that I had to make my parents see all these places too because its from them that inherited the habit of travelling. So some plans were being made in my mind.

As I returned to school again for my last quarter. I realized I will not get time to spend with my parents if I do not get them here after my graduation. Job life and other responsibilities does not allow many things. So it was a decision taken in extreme hurry to get them here. Well I did not have enough money to make all the arrangements, so I got them here on their own money from retirement. I knew this time is important and I can replenish the money once I have it. I wanted them to see all this, experience all this. So somehow things happened smoothly and I got them here. I took them around all the places mostly that I had visited. It was worth it. It feels great that things happened so fast. I will write a detailed post on these experiences also some day.

But after having travelled so extensively now I feel, its enough for time being. I do not want to visit new places unless they are extremely different. Like say Alaska :) where the experience of staying in ICE or Amazon with the experience of staying in rain forests. Or Africa where the experience will be of staying in totally different set of black people and wild life. Well, I will not claim that I have experienced each culture extensively but for that I need good amount of money. Its an hobby of the rich. I am a student who tries to keep things uplift by managing things some how on his own. The travelling has taught me so many things. It has enriched me with great experiences and values. Some day I will mention it.

I felt extremely good today to have written this. Some where there I had forgotten who I am actually. What I like. And what all I have done till now in my life.
It feels nice to travel. It feels nice to get and see new topologies. I many times wonder how all those people who do not like to travel survive in the closed environments of four walls. :(

Marathi movies...

2009-07-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

I like good Marathi movies. Some where down there they make me nostalgic and give peace of mind.

I yesterday watched the movie "Mi Shivajirahe Bhosale Boltoy". The movie started and finished as I had expected it for most of the scenes. Good movie. Gives nice message. Talks and shows lot of dramatic scenes. Director makes a very good attempt. Point is how much will people take in and how much they will remember. It is easy to get inspired, have the adrenaline rush in the blood for quite some time. They way "Rang De Basanti" did for many people. Point is people should remember it for long time. People should remember that a certain 26/11 incident happened. Point is people should remember the train in which they travel could get exploded and they could be the next victims. But as we are humans we have short memories. We get busy in our daily work. We forget the losses unless they cost us really good. Like unless some body in our family dies, in such incidences its just a mental show and trauma for others for some days. Well, I know many of us feel the same way.

I like many other movies which handle many other issues so well. They portray the real Maharashtrian culture, mostly from middle middle class families. I would like to classify middle class as lower, middle and upper. These movies show lot of hopes. Lot of positivity. Lot of emotions and the real life situations. They teach lot of good values and lot of good lessons. Post "Shwas" marathi cinema produced lot of good movies. And everytime I watch them, I feel extremely proud. I feel extremely nostalgic and emotional and sensitive. People ignore these movies saying they are serious movies. Well, I will say these people really do not understand the real movies. They just want to watch mediocre movies which make nonsense jokes, pathetic acting, monotonous dialogues. I like many of the marathi plays and some humorous marathi movies. They make me laugh. Make me feel energetic with refreshing change. Makarand Anaspure makes me laugh with most of his movies. Bharat Jadhav makes me sick with his monotonous acting. Prashant Damale takes me back to the good old romantic days where Marathi plays show a halaka fulka romance between him and his heroine. It feels great to keep watching them. Marathi movies could also be classified into two separate categories as films based on life in Mumbai vs films based in life in Pune. Some how every movie in Bombay portrays the same struggle, tensions and things which a Mumbaikar always faced. I feel bad to watch it and I feel bad to see how life could be so hectic. "Sariwar Sari", "Dombiwali fast" etc etc. Most of the Pune based movies show lot of educated middle middle class background, lot of positivity and great hopes. It feels great to watch them and remember good old Pune days. Some times it feels bad to understand that Pune is also changing at fast pace with lot of chaos, loss of peace and loss of the old culture because of the IT culture. Some developments happen at some costs. It feels bad though.

In all I somehow rate Marathi cinema much higher than its hindi counterpart. All of this happened post "Shwas". The way hindi cinema changed to a lot extent after "Dil Chahta Hai". And I feel so good that it happened.

My Day.....My Graduation, A big day .....

2009-06-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

Finally I graduated, well not technically yet, but conceptually.

What does that mean I will explain soon. A big day for me. Well, to some extent I had forgotten that I am close to graduation. I was too tired after all the hard work and the uncertainty that lies in the future. But today, once I was amongst the crowd and amongst the fellow graduates, I was suddenly cheerful. Suddenly a great excitement came in me. It was a great moment. A great moment which I had never thought would come so fast. Suddenly 2 years seems to have passed so fast. Everything seemed to have gone beside so fast. It seems time flied so fast. So many experiences and so many bad/good memories. When I take a look back now, things seem so different.

I was not so happy till I went to my department today. I mean I sadly was comparing myself with all the PhDs that were around me who were graduating with me. Who had struggled even harder than me. Who had spent more than 5 years doing research and great work. In front of them I was nothing. My accomplishments were so less. That is the sad part of being a Masters student, you always have PhD students to compare yourself with, professors compare you with Phd students. Professors give more time and attention to PhD students. Masters student though do equal work as Phd students for first 2 years, always get less recognition. So somewhere down the line, I had that thought lingering in my mind. I was thinking, what did I achieve? What great work I did? I was comparing myself with others. Clearly I was grossly wrong. But his is how somehow you feel when the atmosphere around you is like this. I am in a university where 95% students are Phd students. Well I really wanted to do a Phd and if God permits some day I will again be back to school and complete it. Lets not talk about it it now. The conditions at present are not supportive for that for me.

So slowly I recalled all the memories of my past, my struggle to understand this system. My struggle for doing research, my struggle for taking care of responsibilities of family and doing studies, my struggle to survive, my struggle from my days in Pune and the struggle I took to be here where I am at present, the struggle of my family, the struggle and support of my friends. And suddenly I felt so confident, suddenly I felt so accomplished,so deserving, so successful, so glad, all the bad memories went away, all the struggle seemed worth it. A look back filled me with a feeling of gratitude towards my family, towards my friends, towards my near and dear ones who helped me being where I am at present. Towards my critics, towards all the people who made me what I am today. It felt so great. It felt so worthy. There was a peace of mind. that was a great moment. It was a cherishing moment and a big smile appeared on my face.

Many people helped me in my struggle. Many people supported me in my hard work in different manner. I troubled many people in my immaturity and impatient nature during all these years. May people helped me understand what I am and what my problems are. I felt regretful of all the things that I did during all these years. I am deeply thankful to all these friends, family, closed people who made this day possible for me. Its a really big day. For a small village guy, who grew up in a village, with not enough resources for education, who was so immature till recently, who struggled with finances, who struggled for keeping his ambitions high, who struggled to keep a close family even though he grew up in a hostel since 5th standard and never witnessed what a family life is, what a home cooked meal is and what fun is, because he had to take lot of responsibilities so early in his life as early as a 5th standard kid. This is the day of the guy who constantly felt an innermost urge to help people understand the value of education in bringing prosperity in families and surroundings, bringing exposure to people so that they can think wisely, and who always thought of other people before himself and for whom an innermost satisfaction is the most important thing. This is a big day for me because I could see a great satisfaction in my parents eyes when my professor praised me by saying "he is a good responsible person and he will do good in life". Its a great day to see that happiness in my parents eyes of having their son achieve this feat. Managing 36lakh Rs as expense that went in my Masters, on my own is not a less big task without any loan. Somehow I managed to achieve it. Doing lot of experimentation that I did is not so easy. As another professor who spoke today during function said, well I will write it separately in a later paragraph. I came here when I knew nothing, when I was innocent as compared to other students around me and who did not know much things. I created and still commit lot of mistakes. But I grew up in the process and learned important lessons in my life. UCSC will have a great place in my heart. This was a nostalgic moment.

This is a big day for all these self claimed accomplishments. This is a day when I want to celebrate myself and pat myself on my back. This is a day which will stay special in my heart always. This is a day my parents will cherish always.

Professor's excerpt. "You are engineers. You are here because of all your hard work and struggle and the sacrifices. You are here to observe, question and analyze. You are here to break rules and form new paradigms and bring changes to our society. You are the ones who have the responsibility to see a better future. Learning should never stop. What UCSC has given you are the tools to learn. Your employer will never want you to learn, the society will never want you to learn. Its you, who should have that innermost desire to keep on learning, questioning and understanding. Its you who would really make the difference in your life. Its you who will commit lots of mistakes and who will fail. Its you who will get up and learn from the mistakes and move ahead in life. Making mistakes is good because that shows you tried doing something differently. Do things differently and do not regret the mistakes that you did. Learn from them and understand them. The more mistakes you do early in your life, better person you will become. Recessions will come and go. Its you who want to understand what you want to make out of your life and how you want to shape it. More challenges you have, more tough you should get. So be a better person and a better engineer.". It was touching and so relevant.

I am so happy today. Class of 2009, we did it. We are proud of ourselves. Hurray !!!!
Thanks God, for being there for me and helping me out in all my difficulties. Thanks my friends for being supportive and thanks my family for the sacrifices and pains and struggle you went through. It all seems worth now.

p.s. Technically I am not graduated yet as I have to yet submit my final thesis, on which I am working. So its a conceptual graduation.

This is called Happiness...

2009-06-14T00:37:00.000-07:00

So finally my parents are here ...

I had never thought that bringing them here would be so smooth. But then as a close friend of mine suggested, it must have been my strong desire to get them here coupled with well wishes and help of others who helped in making this possible, that must have worked in my favor. Everything happened so fast. From the day I got this thought of getting them here, to getting their visa stamped, all happened in 15 odd days. God was surely with me. I believe he has been with me during my entire stay in US, otherwise I would not have been able to stay alone in this odd country with no close friends and no relations and the tremendous stress of graduate studies. I remember 3 more students from India who came with me, left the course in between and lost the struggle. Believe me, student life in US is extremely hard, it does not look as easy as it looks.

I remembered the days when I landed in US. How everything was so new to me. How I had to explore everything on my own. Most of my friends back in India and my family got to know life in US because of me, through my writings, talks. But when I arrived here, everything was as fresh as a new experience. I tried recalling how I felt then. And I try recalling how I felt now. I am settled now. With understanding the life in US, its problems and its benefits. I tried going back to the mode when I was here and things were new, so that I could fill in my parents shoes and take care of them from that angle.

I could see the excitement of all the things on their face. I stay in the best part of US and Santa Cruz is an awesome beautiful place to live in. My parents are fortunate to witness all this. Suddenly my apartment which never heard any noise is used to lot of talks and is lively with my mothers curiosity. From showing them how to interact with locals, to the party culture of US, to showing HOT girls and bikini babes, to the drug addicts, to the sex and booze culture, to the university crowd, to the studious graduate students, to the research departments, to roaming around on beach for a leisurely morning and evening walk with the local Americans jogging with their smiling faces, to having food in different International cuisine restaurants, to showing different colors in flowers and fruits, to occasional fellow Indians spotting, making them visit my professors house attend get togethers in American families, to the core professionalism and discipline and comforts, I am showing them all. Point is they should witness and experience the American culture, in its bad and in its good. I am making every attempt to make them understand the problems and benefits of American system. I am making attempt to keep their enthusiasm alive by making them visit different places first with me and then on their own, so that they could learn this culture and get merged in it. Its a great feeling to see them enjoying this all and it brings a lot of satisfaction. Well, something which I can not make them understand is the pains I have gone through here when there was no body to talk to for days, when the stress took its toll on me, when some unfortunate events happened , when the death striking silence used to make me mad. But at some point of time during their stay they will get bored, the excitement will slowly go and they surely will understand this feeling to a remote extent. At present they are extremely happy and enjoying the new change in their life. Which is what matters. I am preparing myself also for the stage when they will not be here and when US will again suck. And then it will suck big time. It will be depressing, silent and lonely. When the silence would return and when I would be all alone once again. When life will not be so joyful and happy. But at present, I am living the moments, cherishing memories and let them live theirs. This is called happiness. And I could understand it only because I have gone through the pains to understand its importance. So what if it will not be there tomorrow. It will lose its charm, if all I had was happiness. This is a great deal. Watching them satisfied brings a great satisfaction to my heart and that is what matters.

I could never ask for more. This is like a dream come true. A live dream which got into reality so fast that I now find it hard to believe that once I used to worry about how I could make it happen. Right from finances, to everything. I guess some dreams do come true if they are longed for, from heart. Some dreams do come true, if your heart is at the right place. Things happened so fast. I surely bet, God is watching me and helping me out.

Thanks God. I could never ask for more. Thanks for your blessings.

-Mrunal

The mind game....

2009-06-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

How many different levels of exposure do we need?

When I was in India, at some point of time under the so called immature adult arrogance which every young guy has when he gets a new job, when he gets good money, starts understanding practicality, I always thought, I knew everything. I always thought I had all the exposure. That is the typical way a person thinks when he is unexposed to lot of situation yet he thinks he is super-exposed. It was not exactly arrogance but a certain kind of overconfidence, which one gets at different stages of ones life.

How much exposure is enough to make one understand different things. A villager in a village who carries lot of traditional views, who is amused by different novelties of a city life, has a certain different level of degree of lack of exposure. An uneducated person carries whole different set of level of non-exposure. Women, girls carry different mindset and different notion and have different ways of thinking. How does a soldier thinks when he is in battlefield, what kind of mental toughness he carries? How must have all the Nazi people who killed Jews in concentration camps must have thought? Killing people in millions like killing animals, what kind of mind do these men posses? What about terrorists who slaughter innocent people? How much exposure do these people have? Education need not make a person wise. Exposure need make one understand everything. How Each person thinks differently, gets exposed to different situations.

All those ruthless people, who kill people without slightest blot on their conscience have different mindset. All people who are emotional and who are sensitive to sadness and unhappiness carry different level of exposure. There is so much sadness in this world. Every person without exposure who does not understand many things the way they happen, become slave of some orthodox thoughts at some point of time and behaves in a certain fashion. Every body tries to justify things the way he/she does it. At some point of time even a most selfless person gets some selfishness. This is a human nature. People say I care for you, but I do not know how to show my care towards you. People feel by achieving something they will become happy, but the happiness keeps on eluding them from time to time. People try finding happiness in different things. People find some motive to live the life and move ahead.

Loneliness is a state of mind. One can be lonely even in presence of thousands of people, one can be lonely even in the presence of a dear one. People enjoy, or atleast they show that they enjoy. Every family tries to portray the best to the outside world. What lies inside, is a matter of concern and is known only to those individuals. Every body wears a mask of happiness and feeling of enjoyment to portray to others. Does not caring for others and enjoying and claiming I am happy, makes one happy? Does caring for others and getting sad because of the realization that there are certain things which you can not change and keeping oneself unhappy, a good thing? Lot of exposure makes one question lot of things in one's mind. It raises lot of controversies. silencing it by ignoring it or getting unhappy because of the other person is not understanding ones effort towards him/her, is it good? World is insensitive to lot of things. Lot of things become insensitive and un-important and at some point of time one feels what the heck, why should I care? Let it be. Nothing is gonna change. The struggle ends. The fire dies. The passion extinguishes. What is that?

Too many questions. Lot of them philosophical. Lot of them pracital, Lot of them useless. But its good, they are there. Many people do not get these questions at all because they never get exposed to lot of realities of life. Questions arise when one thinks, one thinks, when one is exposed to different scenarios. One gets exposed to different scenarios when one finds time to experience different thing. One finds time to understand and experience different things when one wants to get out of the monotonous race to live the life. So the ultimate point is to be different than the rat race that the world gets into and the rate race which at some point of time becomes so attractive to get oneself into, only to regret it later, by asking yourself why you got yourself into. And then continuing oneself in it because the mentality of there is escape from it. Many times exposure to different new things, can make one think on the right questions at the right stage of ones life. Many times thinking on the right questions, can make one understand different questions that many people face much later in their life and when the time had already flied away. Time is important. We have just a single lifetime. I am so curious to know what happens after death. I many times think what is the point in committing suicide if the ultimate end is death and when you really do not know what lies in front of you after death? If somebody says yes, the problems will be solved, tensions will be gone, suicide is good. But when the whole question of what lies afterwards is not known, making it happen is really courageous. I mostly believe suicide happens in rage of fit, without much thought. Its a sudden impulse, nobody plans a suicide. It just happens. If somebody plans and dies, then I think that person is the most courageous person on earth. But then the foremost question of if he was courageous he would fight out his way out of the mess comes to mind. So I believe suicides happen on impulse.

Exposure to lot of things can change things. It can make you unhappy, because now one knowns different scenarios and outcomes and possibilities. Many people do not want to understand sad part of living, they do not like to be a part of some sadness. All they want is happiness. Good for them. What happens to them when at some point of time they are faced with some threatening moments. God knows. Exposure can change the way one thinks. But again its a chicken and egg problem. One gets exposure only if one wants to think on the right questions.

This is complicated. Its a totally mind game.

-Mrunal

Silicon Valley, Indian Entrepreneurs and TieCon

2009-05-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Stable government was awesome news. Finally I hope we would see some great bold decisions from government. Indian's are finally coming together. Awesome verdict.
I liked Rahul Gandhi's role. I wish he becomes a HRD minister in the cabinet. We need him. This election saw lot of changes in Indian politics. Awesome to read all of them and felt great to see things finally happening and Indians thinking for a better future. Long way to go. I wish the success continues.

I spent my entire day today in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley, attending the largest conference of Indian Entrepreneurs in the world. TieCon as it is called. It was an awesome learning experience and cleared lot of conceptions I had in mind about the way things happen in Silicon Valley. It brought lot of surprises. It revived memories of my commute in Silicon Valley during the summer for Internship. It was hopelessly tiring then 

Here is a link to TieCon
www.tiecon.org

Around 700 Indian entrepreneurs under a single roof. White people are rare to be seen in Silicon Valley. There around 1 million Indians in Silicon Valley in all, with around 700 startups or other businesses to their credit. Every time I visit Silicon Valley I return home with new experiences. In my school there are just 8, 10 Indians and just 30 miles away in Silicon Valley all you see are only Indians. Today after staying amongst core professionals I could see how immature the crowd in Santa Cruz which mostly constitutes of students, looks like. I could observe that Santa Cruz felt like a laid back village in front of Silicon Valley. I could sense that I had a different behavior in there and as soon as I entered Santa Cruz, the behavior was changing. As soon as I entered my house it was different. It was great to observe the way my mood was changing. It was great to be present amongst real people in flesh than virtual people on Internet which I am always, in Santa Cruz. I felt blessed to be away from Internet, where I could think without disturbance. I could sense the change.

I went there to have an experience of the spirit of entrepreneurship and I was spellbound with the struggle people make. So many diverse areas, so many experiences. Listening to inspirational speeches by great entrepreneurs such as Founders of LinkedIn, Zappos and listening to lot of success stories surely builds inspiration. Networking session is something which is really worth to watch as people linger in hallways to make new contacts, exchange business deals and grow their network. Its worth an experience to see a mix of seasoned entrepreneurs ( very very few of them actually) and young entrepreneurs mingling around, sitting discussing lot of business related things. This is a crowd of mostly new aspiring entrepreneurs. So you mostly do not see established ones. Lot of learning by just watching them like how they behave and conduct themselves. Lessons of how to communicate in the professional world and network with people.

From attending lot of panel sessions right from social entrepreneurship, mobile trends, cloud computing, latest trends in technology, venture capitalist sessions to Indian economy, new Indian Government’s role and how business community feels relived of a stable government it had lot of food for thought. Well, it is a different story altogether that such conferences do not discuss how badly some startups closed and how bad the effect was overall. At the end after receiving so much information you feel tired 

Some lessons to be learnt and some experiences to be remembered. The major lesson learnt is there is always somebody with a better view of things, wiser and it is really important to keep in mind that there are always people out there with more experience, knowledge and wisdom. You will reach there some day if you take enough efforts. Do not stress out yourself. And look up to them. Do not get complacent that you know everything, and at the same time do not feel bad that you do not know many things. It will come eventually. Listen to what wise people say and share about their experiences. Always stays in a group of people wiser than you, so that you will grow always.
Well American entrepreneurs are very smart and exceptionally talented. But they are really very few, but they stand out, because they grow in the exceptional culture of Silicon Valley which nurtures entrepreneurship and the spirit. I witnessed it live today.

It is observed that great companies are born in recession and depression. Let’s wait and watch, who is the big one that emerges out of this recession.

Negativity

2009-05-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Why I write all these posts? A main reason is for myself. I write because I know that I was in a state like this sometime back and when I visit them again. I could recall those moments exactly from the day and date. It helps me analyze myself. It acts as my own self motivating factor and a self note type of thing. It helps me to keep track of myself and where I am heading. In Software terminology this is called Project Management or project planning. This is my personal planning and it surely helps me. My professor says writing down things makes you think in a more clear and concrete way. It poses new questions in mind. So this is something good.

The world around us is full of negative people. Everybody has his/her own set of problems. Everybody is unhappy deep down there in ones heart. Everybody has some ambition of some sort and everybody is craving to be someone. It is very easy to get demotivated by hoards of people surrounding, start thinking negatively and self doubting your own thoughts. It works like a group based protocols. When large number of people start saying you are bad and useless, you start believing in that somewhere. Somethings are needed to get out of that mold. Something are needed to build inner motivation and inner strength. To stand tall in this world, to challenge unusual behavior. To ask questions and confirm in your mind that you are correct and the other person is wrong. I many times feel how people claim so many things and talk so confidently and try to demotivate you. And I sometimes do get demotivated and feel tremendously low. But somewhere loneliness teaches you a lot of thinking and analysis and then you know that you are correct, its just that you could not outsmart the other guy in his talks. Debating is a great art, which very few possess.

It takes immense strength to swim against tide, to think on your own about what is correct and what is wrong, to keep on doing the correct things. To bring changes in ones thinking. Writing helps me shed away that negativity. People do laugh. People do make fun. I feel bad about them since it shows their immaturity of level of understanding. A stay in US exposes you to many hard hit questions and exposes you to lot of things. And if you think, then you tend to improve. Now days, I feel people back in India behave very immaturely many times. I do not understand how to explain some things to some fools who think they know everything and who think highly of themselves. Loneliness is good. Because it atleast makes you shielded from all these fools, since most of the world is full of fools and nonsense people. So being lonely is good many times. Getting complacent about one self is bad. Talking too much philosophy and no action is worst. Your value is zero if you can not face the real problems in real world. Loneliness is not the answer. Getting away from people is not the answer. Loneliness just helps analysis and gives time.

I get frustrated a lot sometimes just because here I have to take care of damn every single thing. Right from Studies, to household things, family responsibilities. Frustration builds manifold sometimes and I end up spending useless days wasting a lot of time. Motivation dies. Lot of negative energy builds up. It feels like head would blow up and last thing I would want is to stay in this state. I speak with same age friends, I understand that they have same problems somewhere, I understand that its not only me who has problems but the entire world is full of problems, people face the same questions, they fight the same things as I do. It brings a level of comfort to me. I understand that its not only me. Its psychological, mind always wants to have similar state people with oneself to soothe itself. May be that is what is called the comfort zone. I speak with good friends of mine who are motivated, who are doing things differently, take guidance from them, seek their help. It shows a bigger picture. Frustration comes when there are so many things to do at one time and nothing is progressing. I feel like running away. But now I realize once you set deadlines, try finishing up things, there comes some level of confidence that I managed to complete that and it brings lot of motivation. And slowly things change. Once you realize that the frustration is coming because of all these things, things change. I get calm. That is what I call watching your mind as a third person. Separating yourself from your mind. Letting it calm down. Patting him soothingly to stay calm and to assure him that things would be fine soon. It works great. Why I am writing down it because later someday I would read this and feel happy that I have gone through so many different things and experiences.

So many times now I feel what did I achieve in 2 years of my stay in UCSC. I many times feel I did nothing when I compare myself with other people who are much ahead in life. Then I compare myself with myself and I feel I achieved so much. I feel great and satisfying. I feel good that UCSC happened. I now believe that present makes me more happy. Future makes me tense and past makes me unhappy. So I try staying in present. But sometimes people make it very difficult by asking questions about future plans and lot of things. I feel I do not have any plans. I have some short term plans. People with all sort of questions make me crazy. Note to myself. Do not compare yourself with people. Strictly avoid comparisons of any sort. They will be there but keep on working on your own stuff and good things will happen. I believe in God, as an abstract concept, not as a statue in some temple. I never go to any temple. But I believe somewhere there he stays and watches my good things and guides me.

In India people tend to have lot of misconception about lot of things. People have lot of prejudgments. I am writing this because I sometimes tend to forget who I am and what I have achieved and get lost in people's opinions. I am going to re-read this post again and again myself to keep on reminding myself about things not to do and to stay away from and what I have learned here. Asking questions is considered foolish in India. One most important thing I learned here is do not hesitate to ask even a damn dumb questions. Let people have any bad opinion about your intelligence or whatever. Do not give a damn to what people say or think of you. Make it an integral habit and you will understand you are at ease and can do things confidently. Ignoring people and having do not care attitude is not the same. These people suck because they behave irresponsibly without any thought-fullness, lot of achievements could be made by just selfish attitude and dont care attitude. Lot of things could be achieved by staying insensitive to what goes around and staying in ones own world. Americans mostly succeed because of this solo attitude. And the world is full of such people. So stay confident. India is a land where role models are missing totally and people hold any successful person in high esteem. You are either successful or a failure. What they see is how much successful he is. The effort that went in that is never seen. People are crazy for star status. Its a land of people who need good heroes, but all we are getting is Stars, who get so much complacent of their success that they forget the basics. The basics are totally missing and India is going to dogs.

After an age one starts understanding many things. Why some things happen the way they happen. Why somethings can not happen the way they should happen. May be this is what is called maturity and it helps many times to wash out that negativity. I guess I am getting in that stage of maturity like many of my same age friends. This is a nice transition.

Living an American Dream ....

2009-05-09T17:29:00.001-07:00

I happened to ride in a Korean friends car today to her home. She is doing her PhD in economics and is in 4th year. She stays just 15 mins ride from my place. I have explored Santa Cruz more than any body else here and know many places in the town. I was mesmerized by the beauty and colors on the way to her home. I wish to do an exclusive photoshoot of Santa Cruz houses soon. And then I realized suddenly this is what is called American Dream !!!

American dream. Santa Cruz is a perfect place to visualize what a great comfortable life could be when it is all set. A nice bunglow type fenced house, colorful flowers splashing across in the garden, fruits like apple, peach, pear sprouted on trees in the garden, a cute / big / hairy dog / cat jumping in the garden. Lots of colors, trees and a soothing music in the background. A car parked in the driveway. A garage full of bicycles, gardening tools, and random stuff. A nice wooden patio overlooking sea and a nice energetic beautiful day. The place where I stay in somewhat similar to this, though not exactly. So to some extent I too am lucky :)

Americans live their life in a great way. Now its a different story altogether that the savings rate here is almost zero and most of the things are on credit.(Recession?) Lets not get into that debate. Its a different story. This post is not about how Americans should live ideally, but its about how they live at present. Santa Cruz is a home to many millionaires from Silicon Valley and boasts great housing localities. An average house in Santa Cruz is so much beautiful and the way it is maintained by the owner makes one feel envy of their living conditions. I keep on visiting many such places to visit my American friends, professors, American elders like in coming week I am going to meet a pastor and his wife from a local church. We have long discussions from Indian politics to Gandhi and many other topics, with almost all of them. It feels great to tell them about Indian culture and understand American culture. I like these discussions with elders over here.

I stay amongst the best American culture. California is supposedly very progressive state with high living standards and very less crime rate. Massachussets is supposedly the highest profile state in USA by the standard of the education since it boasts the prime IVY league and oldest traditional Universities in America like likes of Harward, MIT, Cambridge etc. Not entire US is so well advanced and progressive. Many people across US still believe in racism, ethinicity and might be less educated and hence do possess lot of traditional orthodox views. California because of its Technology industry is home to largest number of high skilled migrants and does not have this problem. So people in California are most liberal in their thoughts and actions than the rest of the US.

Santa Cruz is one such place. Awesomely beautiful, splashed with colors, beaches and with abundant natural beauty. So one gets to stay amongst best of the American culture here. I see a mix of both immature crowd (The University undergraduate students. There are around 20,000 undergrads in my university and out of these 65% are females) So the height of immaturity is splendidly high. Right from no clothes and stark nakedness to fully clothed attire. Right from drugs, sex and boozing to church, religion, higher studies One gets to see all variety and action in a single place. So this is a mixed culture. People respect your privacy. They allow you to move ahead in life, think on the right problems. They raise questions. So the culture is in abundance if one wants to learn good values from it. Ignoring it in typical Indian way by saying American families suck and America does not have family oriented culture is a hypocrisy. I many times wonder how are Indian families where many things get suppressed under different pretext are great? I find many hypocrisy's in our society, where people say one thing and do another thing. People make tall claims without knowing their authenticity.

American dream is this. I always think so. I many times feel great that in this university there are hardly 8 Indians. Because of that I get to explore all these things. Yes, it gets lonely many times but I manage to overcome that. This is a new experience. I feel America achieves so much just because of this. People here think on the exact right problems that will make them move ahead. The entire other things are taken care by government. It supports your ambitions and gives you lot of freedom. American dream is this also.

I many times wish, India atleast to some extent with its new found way of people coming to US and returning back get to experience this and it brings changes in aspirations and people's thinking. I wish people think big and I wish people get all this good back to home and improve it back there. I would like to have a similar experience in India, not so fast but atleast in near future.

This is an American dream. !!!!! And I am living it to its fullest. Well, I am getting my parents visit me for next 3 months and I want them to see all this and experience this and carry these memories back to India. I want them to learn this culture and experience the new freshness and learn new values. What could be a better deal than that !!! I want them to have a part of their life lived in an American Dreamy way too. And I am sure they will appreciate this and enjoy it.

I am excited...Thanks America.

-Mrunal

Tips for MS/PHD students ...

2009-05-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

Some tips for MS / PHD students for being successful in their studies while at graduate school.

1. Be open minded. Do not fall in the trap of I want to stick to this specialization. This is an Indian mentality. Get out of it. It does not work in US. Explore and get exposure to different areas and take courses accordingly.

2. Chose difficult projects, different projects, long projects. Do projects in groups. Understand the good practices that your team members are using. Observer their work methods and chose the good ones. Discuss. Chose group members such that you will end up sharing and learning things. Do not chose group members because you are his friend. Chose on the basis of knowledge. If you are less knowledgeable, go to a group which has clever people so that at the end of it you would have emerged wiser.

3. Chose the courses wisely. Do not get bogged down by the course content. Have a diverse yet related courses. Like if you are in systems, good courses are statistics(undergrad level) (this is needed for analysis of data), operating systems, storage systems, distributed systems, data mining, database systems, multimedia systems, computer networking, algorithms, logic algorithms etc. Do not fear the ones you do not know. Understand the way this system works and try to build up the context and prerequisite for the courses you are not good at by taking extra undergraduate counterpart courses. US education system is very flexible and it allows you lot of flexibility in terms of lot of things. So make most of it. Get exposed to different problems so that when similar situation arises you can have atleast some background to think on it. You need not emerge out expert.

4. Take some courses which are inter-disciplinery ie. take some course in departments other than Engineering like say Psychology? Music? depends on your interest. Understand the life other than engineering. You will be surprised to see how different it is and what attitude it carries. Be socially responsible.

5. Professors are weird people. Do not feel bad if they do not talk nicely sometimes or not reply to your mails. Each professor is different. Some are really good, some are really considerate, some are good researchers but not good lecturers, some are good lecturers but not good researchers, some are harsh with spoiled attitude, some are very humane, some are not so. Understand their behavior and analyze them.

6. Difficult courses usually have a Teaching Assistant session where students are helped with their difficulties. Make most out of it. Learn how to use this time for a better learning and understanding of the material. Do not break your head on a complex problem under ego. Take hints and help of other people. Acknowledge the hints and help in your work. Share the credit. Do not brag. Plagiarism could be dangerous.

7. Homeworks are meant for making the material covered in class better understandable. You can learn new subject only if some problem in it is given to you and you break your head thinking about it. It is only during this time that you will face more problems and then only you will explore the subject more and appreciate it more. The satisfaction of solving a complex problem could be more than satisfaction of having a beautiful / HOT girl sitting next to you :) Experience it. haha. Homeworks are meant for that. So do that. Do not try stealing others ideas and copy. Get read of the typical Indian mindset.

8. Learn the material before hand. By learn I mean before professor teaches it in class, go over it in books, wikipedia, Internet. Get into the context of the subject so that the lecture would become interesting and you could identify yourself with what the professor is teaching. After the class is over, spend some time thinking about what professor talked. You will have better chances of remembering it, if you recall it immediately after the class. Your chances of understanding things improve manifold if you spend some time beforehand in going over lecture material, which is usually posted on class website by professor. Or take a look at previous years class websites.

9. Different professors have different ways and styles of conducting lectures. Do not try to force yourself in a single style. It will not work. Observe what is needed and how it could be achieved for the current class. Observe your methods each day so that you can correct them and improve upon them. At the end of your MS you will have lot of learning styles which would make you a real fast learner.

10. Take some undergraduate level courses. Audit them, do not enroll in them. By auditing I mean, just go and listen to lectures, take notes. Do not do homeworks, or appear for exams. Undergraduate classes are taught really nicely and it would give you a comparison basis for Indian education that you learned. Understand the difference between graduate and undergraduate ways of teaching by different professors.

11. Make American friends. Understand their culture. Pick their good habits. Discuss American and Indian culture with them. Make them understand Indian culture.

12. Attend different seminars that might be conducted in the school. Keep abreast with latest happenings in your field and in engineering in general.

13. Well that is most of it. Do not enter graduate school with the sole aim of entering US job market. American education system offers lot more than that. Make most out of your stay here. Enjoy it. Get stressed, depressed. The feeling that you made through it successfully at the end on your own is immensely gratifying. Experience it.

All the best...

-Mrunal

Blogging can kill you...In these countries

2009-05-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

Freedom of speech is not granted for everyone. I suddenly realized it today after reading this article.

A note to all bloggers ...

http://mideast.blogs.time.com/2009/05/05/blogging-can-kill-you/

-Mrunal

Orkut and Facebook....

2009-05-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Orkut has become a favorite past time for me here with my only connection to outside world. I keep on checking mails to see if somebody sends mail to me :) The feeling of being neglected and the feeling of needed by someone is something which gets really stronger when one is away in a foreign country.

Every other day there is some update on Orkut of somebody getting committed. Every other day somebody posts happy looking snaps of friends celebrating, enjoyment. When one is busy in studies, when one is frustrated with the daily tensions of graduate school and in general, sometimes visiting social networking sites becomes too a stress too, because by psychology of human mind one starts comparing one's life with outside world and how cool the outside world is. I recently happened to read an article on "Facebook and social networking sites and the stress". And suddenly I could realize that my analysis was correct. Social networks do build stress when you are already stressed, it builds the peer pressure when you see people doing many things. It brings comparisons. Mind at that instant is so preoccupied with stressful thoughts that one gets the feeling that, his/her own life sucks and for the rest of the worlds its very enjoyable. It forgets ones own joyful moments, happy feelings and feels bad. If the mind is in good state and if it visits social networks, it feels good. So much on psychology. I watch my mind as it makes different claims these days, from happiness to depression, from joy to stress. And I could see the way it behaves and feels amused by the way it changes its actions. Some times loneliness teaches you different ways of survival :P haha..

So Orkut and facebook sometimes feel like my biggest enemies, but sometimes they also feel like best friends to stay in touch with people. The feelings change as per situations :P I guess Internet is changing the way people behave. Earlier their used to be gossiping at coffee tables now its on social sites :) ..

But yes, its a great supporter and leveler because it makes you feel comfortable. Most basic reason of sorrow is comparison and somewhere the social sites provide a huge framework for that :) Everything comes with boon and bane :P

I wonder what are the essays in current school kids curriculum. Earlier it used to be like television boon or bane? Game has changed now and I think so must have been the essays. I bet.

American Education - Financial Aid problems

2009-05-02T14:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a nice series of articles that I came across today while browsing TIME magazine. It gives a great insight into the way American institutes of Education be it secondary schools to elite higher education schools, manage their funds.

A nice informative read if you were always interested in how American students fund their own tutions and manages huge fees. And a current look and statistics on the financial aid problems faced by American schools.

If you analyze it carefully, you will understand what Indian education system lacks and what are the problems associated with it.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1838709_1838713_1838722,00.html

-Mrunal

The information Week...

2009-04-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

I have decided to post the links of the coolest information websites that I find while surfing web on my blog from today onwards. Here goes the first one. I have some of them already in the side section on the actual site www.mrunalg.com But a post will act as a reminder for myself as when I hit upon them.

The most neat information website based on latest happenings in silicon valley I have found till date.

http://www.informationweek.com

The largest conference of Entrepreneurs in Silicon valley coming up on 15th, 16th May and I plan to attend it. Quite excited :)

http://www.tiecon.org/home

"Struck by lightning:Curious world of probabilities". An awesome book I recently read on day to day examples of probabilities and how it could help us remove stress in our day to day lives.

Limited google book preview
http://books.google.com/books?id=855qE9nDYhYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=struck+by+lightning&ei=HdH0SeSCF4vOkwSL86DyCQ#PPA23,M1

And I hope I find more...

-Mrunal

Bug in the Blogger.com

2009-04-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the spams that you might be getting from my site recently. There is a bug in the blogger.com and some of my earlier posts are getting reposted again and again.

My apologies for the inconvenience and the spam.

-Mrunal

Why I hate people's mentality many times...

2009-04-22T02:38:00.000-07:00

I sometimes feel Indians under the name of culture tend to overdo many things which they should not be doing. I look at many households which say that their kids are growing under influence of great culture and Sanskar. But when I think somewhere deep I find there are many hypocrisy's behind all those claims.

India is a big country with people from all strata. Highly educated people, highly influential people, large middle class, lower class and poor people. Since I belong to a middle class family and that is the one which consists of the largest one I feel many things about it. I first of all hate the mentality of enough is enough and everything should be available without doing much efforts. There are large number of people out there who keep on complaining how their living conditions do not improve, how they do not get better facilities, how Indian politics is in deep shit, how things are getting to worst. Money stays the foremost question in front of all middle class families and the ambitions are limited to making money to make ends meet and have a decent life style. Very few people chose to think out side the daily routine, take risks, get exposure of new things and move ahead. Most of the times people draw stereotypes in their head about their abilities.

A typical life style is both parents earning in daily jobs, saving money for their kids future, kids going to schools, graduating from different professional levels such as engineering, science or similar domains. Typical expectations are for children to get married once they have their first job, decent salary, and enough saving capacity. Then happens marriages which supposedly are made and decided in heavens. Indians do marriages with blessings of all the auspicious Gods, by considering the star signs and as long as things match up to some extent. Mothers have typical expectations of their daughter in law staying in their control, daughter in laws feel it unnecessary after a point of time. Son tries to match up things. Many times fathers are not bothered. What is needed is mutual respect for eachother, but many times thats exactly what goes missing. Things happen automatically if its present. And the saga continues. Equations are changing now days with girls getting equal career opportunities and having say in financial matters, but many times orthodox thoughts stay the same. And the life continues. Dowry's are expected from brides parents and a girl child is still considered a load on a parents shoulders. Money is wasted on lavish marriages even by taking expensive loans and to keep ones status in relatives. These relatives who are more menace than blessing do every possible bit to spoil the relations. Heavy Dowry's are taken by groom's parents under pretext of different things. I feel pathetic about all those parents and all those grooms who make themselves look like a commodity in market who is in sell and the highest bidder gets the prize. Things are changing slightly but over and large they still are same amongst many families.

I hate the mentality where parents bring up their kids with the aim of kids should support them during their old age. I hate the mentality when the aim behind marriage is to get more dowry many times. I hate the mentality where son/daughter can not oppose his/her parents views just because they are parents and elders, even though they are wrong. Why not empower yourself and your kids with so much confidence and encouragement that they will do things on their own and will be able to sustain themselves? Why to provide them with every comfort while growing up and expect favors in returns? I know many families do that. Kids loving their parents is a different thing and parents expecting their kids to do everything for them in their old age is a different thing. If the upbringing is correct, these things happen automatically. There are no expectations and these things happen on their own. Take any strong family. When I say strong I do not mean financially strong, I mean strong in terms of values. One need not have strong financial backing to have strong values. They need not be together. But what I find in most households is this thing is missing. Some one might say, I am getting influenced by American Culture. I will say no, these are not tied to specific culture. This is about empowering the society and bringing changes in its mentality. Parents and kids are a great relation and expectations of any sort in it only spoils it. Great families are built on the values and they preserve these values for generations.

So my hatred for the Indian mentality comes from the narrow minded attitude of expecting things without trying hard. My hatred comes from the fact of justifying ones actions even if they are wrong. It comes from the fact of staying in the mentality of this is enough for me and my life is all set and what ever happens now, let it happen. It comes from the fact of letting someone else control your life and how it moves on instead of taking control of it yourself, trying hard to be someone and making an impact. It comes from the fact that under the pretext of culture many orthodox things get done but nobody wants to change them because in one way or other those people gets benefit out of it. So many more things.

Education is the biggest gift every family could give to their children. Exposure and the mentality to get accommodated in the new culture as it changes, observing good things from it and staying away from bad things, does not happen in many families. Kids do not try teaching or keeping their parents in pace with latest happenings. Parents many times do not bother. Things get worst and it ends in worst. Happy families are very few and the ones which are not happy do not understand why they are unhappy and make changes in their behavior. Each person is different and may be if he does not feel the need to change his behavior as an adult, that means he will never change it at all in future. Change is difficult and troublesome for many people. Routine which is very easy is accepted always.

I hope some day things would change and people stop getting individualistic and understand the root cause of problems and try improving from their rather than expecting things to change on their own.