Pandemic Terror

More than AH1N1 its terror which is pandemic and damaging. Its very natural to be careful, watchful but its another thing to be terrorised.
Its rightfully said that if you keep subjects under fear they are easy to be governed. Now we dont have Kings but we have politicians who claim to be our representatives who have this policy. Its very unfair to blame politicians for everything but its the system which needs overhaul.
Having suffered the logistical nightmare owing to school shutdown, i feel panic has set in. Its correct and prudent to be scared and follow the rules. Idea should have been to educate and circulate proper information right since the day first victim was detected. (it was atleast 15 days back that a software guy had reported, things got into news only when whole class was down).
ofcourse health officials tried to do that.
But now with first death in india, terror has crept in more than panic. a slightest bout of cold, sneeze, fever will lead parents to h1n1 tests. but that needs to be done as its very tough to track how and when you would have got in contact with infected patient. offices, gyms, clubs, hotels, movies, public transport, ... where all you can establish the chain...
Now i feel we should do following:
1. Have 5 more official quarantine sections (one in kothrud, one in katraj, one in aundh, one in peth areas, one in shivajinagar) to isolate and treat positive cases
2. 2 more H1N1 testing centers /equipment should be added (at what cost will need to find out) to handle cases with symptoms (be it anybody) and rule out negatives.
3. Home quarantine of people in direct contact with H1N1 positive confirmed cases. Dont close whole school. Upon symptoms report to centers
4 Basic hyegiene to be maintained while sneezing , spitting , hand washing etc.
5. pray to almighty
its scary situation....

3.

Dark Clouds

in my earlier post i had commented on rise of Google as positioned vis a vis Microsoft. Google CEO was then bullish about Cloud computing be the next thing which will change technological landscape. Ofcourse Google is still on track with launch of O/s to take MS head on. Ms has laughed off Google O/s. Google is unstoppable. But Clouds are yet to rain. The biggest threat of security concerns were laid bare by various attacks and data thefts on Twitter . Though proponets of cloud have mentioned this as exception and have blamed twitter for lack of process. It has again laid focus on best security practices. It also has created privacy issues like corporates having access to this information. Can you imagine Google as Big brother knowing more details about you than you yourselves do. And human mind is very susceptible to greed and ambition that has manifested into greatest scams and global phenomenons like depression currently we are facing. So has cloud answered these anamoloies. Can the security systems be robust enough . Ultimately everything turns to a password. In real world you have keys to secure your valuables. But effort has to be made to break the lock, enter the premises unnoticed, manage security guards, get out with the loot unnocticed and then get absonced to avoid detection, have network to sell the valuables and remain untraced..
In online cloud world its just you need to crack the password.
Scary , not that. We still can have processes to manage the threat. But issues still unanswered.
Interesting times ahead

prohibited

alcohol is prohibited in Gujrat. But everyone knows the watering holes. Hooch tragedy has brought issue again into highlight. Modi's request to center to pay the revenue lost has also raised lot of points.
The only loser in the matter is Gujarat Govt which is losing revenue. Rest everyone is profiting based on gujarat's free market philosophy. its time to do aways with double standards. Apparently based on common sense, Gandhijis philosophy seem to have failed miserably in every sociopolitical front. whatever munnabhai team says.
its time to do away with the last legacy. ..
party anyone ???

Guru

Yesterday i celebrated Gurupournima at Riyas music school. Riya performed few songs.
Life is a great teacher, its a mahaguru. God or whatever one assumes as divine energy provides inspiration throughout. But still there are many mortals who help us acheive our path. Idea here is to thank them.
In the stream of commercialization of education: schoolastic or vocational teachers have lost the humane aura. With impersonal media like elearning, multimedia, we have standardized learning. Globalization and worldwide classrooms have added new dimensions to learning. so where do old school of guru stand today. I think its a very personal emotion which someone has for somebody as a Guru. So institution of Guru has given place to role someone plays in our lives.
The first gurus are parents. then come family members and then the rest. still a special mention to role i had with my distant cousin (but yet very close) SD dandage as friend, philosopher, guide.
For me : Kale sir was the one who first saw any spark in me.Apte sir /abhyankar from school can be termed as a real Guru who changed my outlook towards academics and gave confidence that i was somebody in scheme of things, so was patwardhan madam who made me believe i can do well in academics as well. YG Kale sir and Dharne sir with whom i started my class experience, really created that confidence in me. Khasgiwale sir, and arun belare sir (both RIP) gave that edge which helped me greatly. Rahalkar sir from JEE coaching with his any problem any minute slogan really pushed me hard. At IIT to be honest i could not get into any personal equation with profs except maybe PPK (Project Guide), M K Ghosh and B Ray(fac advisor). For the lack of same maybe my interest towards technology took backside and aspiration of Management took drivers seat.
At the start of professional life i had a great mentor in Rangan from nocil from whom i learnt project management skills. They are still handy. attention to detail etc etc. luckily i managed whole plant shutdown as independant officer and not a trainee thanks to his recommendation.
I started my enterpreunership early. My friend subrato was the one for whom nothing was impossible. My BIL was very good technically, agressive and resolution of issues, My various colleagues , clients and partners had many things i could learn.
Thanks to Mahguri shri sai and pray that he illuminates path throughout.

water world

rains have played truant and normal life is soon going to be out of gear in my city. in one of my earlier postings i had talked about eyewash about carwash. that was just one instance that we could have made impact. recirculation of water needs planning, effective distribution, leakage reduction, rain water harvesting, effective storage etc would have avoided this situation. there is no contingency planning. one failed monsoon can create so much of havoc here. politicians the usual suspects dont care , neither do we to take steps to avoid wastage. western world does not have this problem owing to better planning and less population.
issues of common life are the last priority. who will change this: you and me...

Anti Climax

After a lot of build up, indian team lost. Jury is now out on why we lost. Inquest has begun. Kirsten's theory of blaming IPL fits in the tradition of typical western condescene towards whatever indian which according to them is anything but subtle. Westerners (with exceptions) think themselves to be sublte, balanced and saviors of world. Far from it, howsoever polished they may be they can take a unidimensional view of self interest and superiority. anyways thats beyond the topic. Point is all major players except winner pakistanis were in IPL too say westindies, SA, Srilanka. so fatigue has some difference sense in modern cricket.
Other justifications are nature of T20 which has luck as major factor, wrong tactics etc are valid in bits and peices. For me following are points of concern
1. Bench Strength of Indian team is weak, inexperienced and overhyped. All past major succcess ( post ODI worldcup 07) can be attributed to individual brilliances of sachin, yuvraj, sehwag or dogged determination of Kumble, Dravid, Gambhir. The fringe players got good exposure via IPL and IPL has helped in that way. But they lack quality and approach of above mentioned showstoppers in indian team. Batsmen are flat track bullies and Bowlers are anything but consistent
2. Bowling inconsistencies: difference in winning and losing is ability to produce 6 good balls in over. You can have 4 good balls in an over with say 3 runs. if you concede a wide and a boundary on any two (in whatever order) over goes for 8 runs which is decent. We did have very few good overs in super8s. That made huge difference. We won last world cup because we were able to produce good overs (remember those which choked SA and in Semifinals against Australia after symonds wicket). Noone seemed to care about this point year after year.
3. Lack of transparancy about injuries: sehwags exit was knockout punch which boosted opposition. Has sehwags injury known, we could have requested Sachin to be a part . That would have been master strike demoralizing opposition bowling. If not Sachin, we would have had someone like Manish Pandey to create unknown factor.(just like yusuf pathan factor in last finals). These injuries affected fielding as well.
4. Tactically we did not focus on opposition weakness: In IPL, it was proven that Bravo is not a good player of short delivery outside off, but we played by piching him up. same with KP, we bowled too many leg side deliveries where he is very comfortable. No approach while batting.
5. Club level fielding: Not much to add, maybe we would have been worst fielding side in torurnament.
6. crucial goof ups like sending jadeja ahead of Yuvraj, playing out of form Ishant ahead of Inform RP, not promoting yusuf pathan.
rest as they say is history.

Foreign Bodies

In medical terminology every human cell reacts to foreign bodies. This reaction varies from cell to cell. Similarly every society reacts to foregn migrants differently. This reaction varies based on many parameters. Recent attacks on Indian students in Australia is such a typical response. same can be made out of attacks on biharis in Maharashtra or assam. Obamas policy attacks on immigration from india china to protect jobs is another manifestation of such paranoia of foreign people. Thus i was cheering when australia were knocked off ICCT20 world cup, i feel for students.
Its age old history with such migrations. Britishers have tried to nullify indian history by claiming caucascian migration in form of aryans. This is a very challengable assumption to me.
The moguls and other tribesmen plundered india. Indians had never gone out of peninsula or plains as it had all natural resources to feed them as well the attackers. Colonial powers from europe came here and ruled us. The paranoia of outsiders coming and ruling the natives is well supported in History. Now when tables are turned, Indians had to move out to meet global aspirations. Now its turn for developed countries to feel paranoic having plundered colonies over centuries. add to that a caucascian beleif of being the pall bearers of human civilization. (this is well documented by kipling as white mans burden).
We indians can also be not given clean chit on this count. we as society have different problems based on caste, color, creed, region, releigion etc etc..
Coming back to migration, its only when foreign bodies fail to assimilate in local culture then clashes occur. One very important dimension is economical situation of immigrant. If he is poor he is a problem, if he is wealthy he is worthy.
americans, the first people to fight for open economony, liberalization call for open markets from developing countries. But when it comes to reverse open policies for migration or jobs, they are protectionists. every one has right to safeguard their interest but this process has to be mutual.
Its a very complex issues faced by mankind since ages.
i think global village concept is just utopia. world can be flat so long as it does not affect my job.

Final Frontier

There is always a holy grail for everyone (i am not referring to Dan Browns take on the topic and i am not promoting Angels and Demons). There is always a final frontier to be won for everyone.
Steve waugh had mentioned about beating India in India was that. South Africa had same feeling for australia conquest. England has ashes dreams. Sachin Tendulkar feels lifting ODI world cup to be that. Federer wants French Open, Lendl wanted wimbledon, Sharad Pawar wants to be PM. Narayan Rane wants to be CM. Whole Indian film industry feels that for Oscars. Whole science community feels that for Nobel prize. Whole IT community wants to be involved in 'the next in thing' featuring in silicon valley success stories. Whole bunch of fellow entrepreuners of our times wanted to be next Infosys. the much malignes Investment Bankers wanted to be featured in WSJ, All those in Music want to perform at Sawai, All trekkers want their foot on the everest. These are just examples. I am sure every individual has that holy grail. Few lucky people acheive the grail after few attempts. But i have seen whole lifetime spent unsuccesfully. someone has a bunglow in mind to buy, someone has a brand of car to buy, someone has a country to visit, someone even wanted to meet long lost friend. These cravings are varied. Its the intensity, desire to achieve that defines the quest. The time duration required to achieve that is the real test of character. Many people give up as well as its very easy to do that. There is nothing like achieving what you want and getting it after a long exhaustive road.
There are some dangers also in this, while chasing the grail, life's other achievement (which may even be bigger than the grail) will feel like no shows. Lifes small gifts and pleasures will be lost while having a single devotion towards the grail. Its the balance is what defines success in life.
In short not to give up on quest of the grail while balancing out the life with other important facets will define success.
There is certain unfairness about life. Some things happen in such a way that a particular achievement is denied to someone just for no reason or by chance. And then maybe owing to lack of interest to followup or some other priorities , that event never happens. and at later time you realize that achievement is still missing. And then maybe in some cases time has gone or its very difficult. Then arises that quest which is very strange for others to fathom. Example: One of my friends has taken admission in IIM after 13 years of graduation leaving aside a settled career and family.
The holy grail of life is central to all of us. They define our life, they provide meaning, motivation, substance, etc to our lives ( beware of dissapointments, demotivations, obsession, guilt as by products).
My Holy Grail is yet to be achieved. But i have many role models to guide me reach there.