I had booked the last flight home – at 10:45pm – to avoid the crazy Gurgaon Peak Hour Traffic, and also it was the cheapest I could get.

And the flight was delayed. Finally the boarding started at 11:30pm. I had woken up at 3:00 AM today, for this one day trip. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open and quickly dozed off as the flight was taking off.

I felt a scary shudder and woke up and found the flight dark. I closed my eyes but I could not go back to sleep. I pulled up my phone and saw the time – it was precisely 12:00 midnight.

But I knew something was wrong. The phone was blurred and it was kind of overlapping as if 2 phones were there. I thought it was my tired eyes playing tricks on me and closed them once again and tried to go back to sleep. I could not shake off the odd feeling.

I tried to open my eyes, and by habit when I am bored I unlocked the phone. This time I tried to focus my eyes better and I could not believe what I was seeing. There were 2 phones. One an Android Phone and another my iPhone overlapping each other. I brought my hand up and could see 2 over lapping wrists and palms. I looked to my left and got the shock of my life.

My sleep evaporated like spilt petrol on a hot tar road.

My co-passenger, a young man – was showing in double – in an overlapped state – like a bad photoshop job. I knew it wasn’t a dream. Because any time I get such a shock I always end up waking. I spoke to myself what is this?

“Yes what is this” – I felt a message come back to me and it was very much my voice. Was I speaking to myself?

“Did I just speak to myself? – felt as if I got cloned or something”, I thought.

“Yes, it does feel like I am split into two. This is crazy“, quick came back the reply.

For sometime both of us were quiet letting the situation sink in.

I did not know what to ask. But I got a thought from my other self pop up in my head.

“I have read about this before. This duplication”

“Kidding me. This is nuts. Doesn’t make any sense”.

“Ok, I have a theory. I read lot of sci-fi, you read books right?”

“No. I don’t – but how come I read books. I certainly don’t.”

“Hold on – don’t panic. I think I am getting it. There are these parallel universes. Infinite parallel universes. There are infinite instances of us in all these parallel universes this very moment”.

“Doesn’t make any sense. You mean to say, I am right now in infinite such situations, and there are infinite Earth and Universe and so on. Sounds crazy.But go on.”

“Ok. Believe me. The latest in Quantum Theory proves the existence of these Infinite Parallel Universes. And at precisely mid-night we might swap our positions.”

“You mean you are having a different life – like a rockstar, and I can take up your life”.

“More or less. However our lives are not that wide apart – just a few variations thats all. I run a startup – what do you do?”

“Same, I also run a startup”.

“Ok, but before we get into the details, do you want to swap?”

“You mean we have a choice so we can swap places. How will we even do it, and how will I survive in your universe”

“Don’t worry, we have done it so many times before – just that we never do it consciously. Haven’t you felt your life take wild turns all of a sudden – it is because we have swapped places”

“Yes, agree to that. Thought I suddenly got lucky, or got totally unlucky. Ok I am game – always ready for a new adventure”.

“Ok. Man you are me. Always looking for an adventure. Lets do it. Just close your eyes, and will to swap places – I will do the same and go back to sleep. It will work”.

“Will we meet again?”

“Highly improbable. Even if we meet we wouldn’t know because there are infinite of us”.

“Can’t we continue this conversation some more time?”

“Look at our phones, what time does it say”

“Weird, Still 12:00. Thought I was chatting with you for long.”

“Yes, since we are conversing at the speed of thought, this discussion is happening in fractions of seconds. Before it turns 12:01 the swap should happen. Not sure how much time is still left. If you want to do it, we shut up, will it and go to sleep”

“Done. Nice meeting you myself. Have a good one.”

“Same here.Good night”. 

“Please raise your window shades and pull your seats to the upright position”, I heard the air hostess say. I opened my eyes, and felt strange. And suddenly the conversation came flooding to my mind and looked at my phone – it was 1:20AM. And it was not an iPhone any longer.

This is a chest thumping post. I am warning you.

I have unlocked a new level in my life. I have run 1,000 KMs.

 

This was done over the last 2.5 years starting Nov 2012, averaging 6 Kms per run at a nice middle aged man’s pace of 6.5 ( pace is the number of minutes it takes to cover 1km ).  I can hear you saying – nothing big to crow about – but hey – this is me I am competing against – not Usain Bolt – and as a competitor I am tougher!

I am not a consistent runner. During monsoon I stop running and eat lot of onion pakodas. Also just a few months back my shoe was stolen, or for any lame excuse the devil in my brain will throw at – I will agree immediately, and I will declare an off-day.

It has been a constant battle between the Angel and Devil in my brain. And no clear winner has emerged of far. But I want to show this devil – inspite of you I have accomplished something really big.

I have so much to tell – but will tell one thing I found in this journey of 1000 kms. About Human body – how it is amazing and how it heals by itself.

I over do at times – like this year beginning when I took a drastic resolution. I am going fully carbon neutral. So I cycled to work, climbed stairs up and down ( between the 2 offices one on 3rd floor and 5th floor ), and full day did the standing desk. And to make matters worse purchased Puma Mobium – a front foot striker shoe which increased my pace drastically – and got a 5 to 6 pace. I am basically a 6 to 7 pacer. Felt I was a champion and did a few runs around 5.3.

And I got severe pain at the place where the leg fits into the ankle. Especially when I climb down stairs, or even at random times when I get up from a chair. It was terrible. I could not run anymore.

I went to see a doctor this Jan 2015. [ Entire 2014 I did not visit one – thanks running! ]. He said it is over use, and something got inflamed – take these pills over a month. Took the pills over a month – nothing improved. I kept postponing meeting the doc again. Was afraid he will order a CT scan.

I waited one more month. During this period my Puma shoe got stolen. I felt so damn guilty that I did not buy another one. Feeling lazy is awesome – and the devil kept whispering – tomorrow and tomorrows kept coming infinitely. I completely stopped running from Jan to March end this year. The pain was not fully gone – but was constantly reminding me – that it is still there. The devil started whispering – your running career is over dude, just sleep. And I stopped running completely.

Finally – I mustered courage to put money on another shoe – the wife also felt bad for the shoe lose so she encouraged me on the purchase – and this time I went back to my old faithful – Nike Free Run – I had started suspecting it was the Puma shoe ( or rather I should blame my ego ) that damaged my foot-ankle.

I did a few runs in the new shoe – and a mild pain was there during the initial runs, but after a few runs it was totally gone and I don’t remember anymore how the pain used to be. Today I did a 8.5km – and absolutely no pain anywhere in the system.

The more I run – the body adapts itself I guess – and strengthens automatically at places where it is weak. This has happened to me so many times. My shin splints, knee pain etc. all went away – the more I ran.

The “loose it if you don’t use it” adage is apt.

1,000 Kms. Bangalore to Mumbai distance. Don’t mess with me 🙂

Appraisals, Tax, Meetings, Interviews, More Tax, Property Tax, License Renewal, Passport Renewal constable interview, EMI, Aadhar card…

You think your life is tough?

Just look at a couple of Celebrity’s kids. It is tougher for them. Way too tougher. One whose names starts with R and has a famous freedom fighter’s name as last name. Another starts with A and his entire family – except him of course – wife, dad, mom – are all Padmashri winners.

Now meditate this.

They are not concerned about Taxes, or License Renewal or any of the mundane things you and I have to deal with on a daily basis.

They have a bigger fish to fry. It is the dreaded word called ‘Expectation’. Or filling up the big shoe their father wears or once wore.

It is the genes – we all say – and rightfully so – being ruled well by the Kings and their princes and their descendants all these years till the mighty British came and made a mess of our country. The genes should bring out the next better version – and they should surpass their Dads.

If you ask R or A – they do not want to be in the profession their Dads were. But we all ‘expect’ them to do better than their Dads. Perhaps they could have been a kickass pace bowler, or a chef book author or a top notch coder.. we will never get to know.

It is lot of pressure. And these young minds cannot cope up with it. Imagine if you are judged daily – on TV and newspaper – and ridiculed by Social Media and Blogs ( hey I am on their side ) – will you be able to perform? There was no performance anxiety for their Dads.

Anyway – leave all that aside.

Let us focus on our miserable life as we call – Taxes, More taxes, Passport renewals, Aadhar card and all that – now does it feel bad? Not bad at all right – no performance anxiety or expectation.  Just leading a bindaas life – and can go watch a movie whenever we want, or go eat Paani Poori on the road – without it making a big headlines anywhere.

Next time when you eat a Chinese Bhel, spare a tear drop, for these celebrity kids – they have a raw deal indeed.

I finished reading Jupiter Travels by Ted Simons.

This crazy British journalist went around the world in 1975 – in a Triumph motorcycle, took 4 years and lived to tell the tale through his book.

Each of us are sent to this world to experience life. It is all programmed before we are planted on earth. Some of us let the soul’s true purpose come out – some of us let the ego, self-imposed chains to prevent the soul from going in its journey.

Ted Simons let his soul a free run and did this brave journey – all alone in 1975. He entered and left Egypt before the war, reached Cape of Good hope at the bottom tip, took a ship to Brazil, got arrested and let off and explored Argentina and via Mexico got into USA, found his love. Again took a ship to Australia, then rode across the continent, took a ship to Singapore – rode a bit there, came to Madras ( as it was called then ), rode to Bangalore to see Sai Baba in the now Whitefield ( and was disappointed not to see any magic ), went to Mumbai, Benares, Calcutta, Agra.. got totally bugged off India towards the end – got into Pakistan, Turkey and reached home. What a journey.

What I loved about the book was his candid account. He did not hide his emotions and feelings – was a true first person account.He did not hide back the frustrations, the disappointments, the anxiety. He did not pretend he was a hero or this brave chap out to accomplish something.

Towards the end I felt he was forced by the publishers to write what the take away from this journey was – could feel he was arm twisted into writing this – otherwise as a reader we will be disappointed ( I wouldn’t be! ) – that he did not learn anything from this 4 year journey. He did dwell upon this – but I knew it was not from his heart. Sorry Tedji – you need not have told us about this – words cannot convey these I think – has to be felt.

And my Thunderbird is quietly running errands.. it is telling me something.. my soul can feel it 🙂

Ahemm..first my apologies for tying a camel’s tail to a pony’s tail – this post is akin to that. Totally 2 unrelated disciplines being compared 🙂

Agile – as you know is what we use to create kickass products.

Spiritualism is to me the exploration of the Why? – Why are we happy, or sad. Why did we come on earth, why we die?

I practise Agile at work, and explore Spiritualism constantly in all things.

During one of my meditations it hit me – A developer practising Agile, and what Spirituality teaches us are so common.

The Now

Our mind is like a pendulum. It either swings to the past – oh I did this, said this, he spoke rudely to me that day, I missed giving a good repartee .. or swings to the future – oh what will happen if I don’t file my tax returns, what if I confront my colleague tomorrow.. it goes on and on – swinging back and forth. And when the pendulum hits the Now – it is where happiness is – pure unblemished joy. It stays for a fleeting second.. and then goes on to dwell in the past or future – leaving the joy as a memory.

We try to get to the now.. and hang on to it – and it is a lifetime’s effort to get there – and then you get enlightened… perhaps.

When I first heard of a “Story” – in the Agile context – I was told to focus on that story alone while developing. Not to worry about the future stories in the pipeline, or the changes in requirement that might or might not come, or what the nearby developer pair is working upon. Focus on just your story, and do a great job on it. Everything will turn out to be just right.

As a developer, as you focus on just the story ( with a little cross-eye on an open ended design ) the outcome will be 100% Bug free and your story will sail to QA complete effortlessly.. and then you hit God Mode in your team.

The Now is your Story.

Death & Failure

As you get more spiritual you get more comfortable with Death – the big end. Because you know it is not the end, but the beginning of another adventure. You will be tossing out all that you earned, and will have to start all over again. However some of the intelligence you acquired – will come to help in the next adventure. Dejavu, Gut instinct, Karma are all that.

There is a parallel in Agile as well. It taught me to scrap everything I had worked, and start from scratch if there is a need – Agile is comfortable with change and does not crib ( unlike giving a big Change Requirement Document and a bill ) My backyard has many dead bodies – some unfinished abandoned projects and some code, some perfectly working stuff.. but had to be archived and might never get opened again. However, someday it will all come to use. Even if the Story I worked on never gets to production or the project fails to see the light of the day – the learnings are enormous.

Most of the good discipline I picked are from failures – either from my own handiwork, or watching other developers mess up.

Celebrate Death & Failure!

Discipline

One can read as much as you want on Spiritual books, or listen to all the lectures from Spiritual Gurus – but the real joy is in practising it – in a disciplined manner.  Only when you sit down to meditate do you experience bliss. For best results – lot many things have to be followed – like food habits, health routine, sincerity of actions, purity in thought.. Break any one of them – you get nothing in the end.

Again for an Agile project to be successful – just reading books and viewing lectures from Agile Thinkers is not sufficient – the team has to be disciplined at every step. Standups, near abstract stories, continuous builds, unit tests, automated tests, periodic showcases…. break any one of them and the project is doomed.

God speed my Agile Developer friends!

Yours Truly
The Agile Guru 🙂

This post is a 101 Introduction to Raspberry Pi.  I will show you how to use a Raspberry Pi to create an Apple TV, Chromecast equivalent, and also read and push your home temperature to a server.

It is the best time to be a geek! There is 3G everywhere and 8MB Bandwidth at home and office. Geeks everywhere carry a super computer in their pocket now!

TBs of storage are now available for a dime. Everything is backed up realtime to the cloud. Even if you lose your device or hard drive crashes, it can all be downloaded back. Maps and GPS Accuracy is spot on. The stuff geeks have now makes James Bond look like a kid showing off in a School Science project.

And we need not deal with Windows or IE anymore. It is either Android or iOS or Ubuntu or OS X.

And then comes this Raspberry Pi to the party – from the open source hardware movement – a cute little computer – the size of a palm – which costs just Rs. 2,500 and can do a hell lot of things.

How to procure a Raspberry Pi

I got mine from Amazon.in – protocentral was the vendor. Just the raspberry pi ( motherboard, 4 USB, HDMI port, ethernet port ) will be 2,500. I also got a kit which had a SD card with the OSes, USB dongle, a breadboard, a few resistors, a capacitor and a power supply (which blew off). Also ordered a DHT11 a temperature and humidity sensor – it is 99Rs. It all came to Rs.5000.

Raspberry Pi or Arduino?

Just like the yin-yangs of vi emacs, android iOS, raspberry pi also has a yang – it is this Arduino. While Raspberry Pi is from UK, Arduino is from Italy. From what I learnt Raspberry Pi is good for beginners – understands Python and is more general purpose and can only talk digital. Arduino needs C ( segmentation fault – thought I had broken up with you) and is more rugged and can talk analog.

Some say start your prototype on Pi, then manufacture on arduino. Might know more about this as I keep digging.

Setting up Pi

Apart from Pi you will need these things

1. A TV with HDMI input
2. A keyboard
3. Mouse
4. 8GB or more SD Cards
5. Ethernet cable, and a router ( alternative is to share wifi on laptop over ethernet port )
6. A laptop/desktop – to format SD Card

Raspbmc 

If you have a spare SD Card, format it to Fat. Then download Noobs Lite – Network Install Only – http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/, unzip and copy the entire folder contents into the root of the SD Card.

Boot the Pi with the SD Card, and it will show an option with a few OSes.  Choose Raspbmc – this is
the XBMC port and turns your Tv into a Smart Tv.

Here you will have to connect your Pi to the router through the ethernet port – so it can download the OS ( around 700MB ). The setup is entirely automatic and does not ask for any configuration. The default user account is pi and password is raspberry.

There are so many Add-ons and settings that are available – like a Youtube Add-on, or a subtitles Add-on for Movies. There is also a free XBMC Remote app on iOS and Android  with which you can connect to the Pi to control TV.

Raspbian

This is a regular light weight debian port. Works quite well in the puny pi. You can get another SD Card and install Raspbian ( same steps as raspbmc above ) – so you can swap the 2 sdcards.   There is also a multi boot option so you can boot into Raspbmc or Raspbian or more. I did not try this.

Say Hi to GPIO

GPIO – General Purpose Input Output. This is where things get interesting. There are 8 pins which can either send a 5V voltage, or receive a signal.

I wired the DHT 11 – Temperature and Humidity sensor to the Pi and was able to read the settings. Was quite easy.

1. The circuit layout I got here : https://chrisbaume.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/beer-monitoring/. Looks scary – but it is actually a very simple circuit. My skills are not that great, just followed the circuit to the T and it worked at the first try.

2. Get the Adafruit drivers and see if you can read the sensor.

git clone git://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code.git .

cd Adafruit_DHT_Driver #go to the folder where DHT driver is present

Adafruit_DHT 11 14 #11 is for DHT11 sensor, 14 is the Pin I used

If you get temp and hum in output with numbers, then the circuit is working fine. Sometimes it will not give any reading, and a hex error will show up.

3. Next is to push this to a server. Again it is super easy.

First – create an account at thingspeak.com and get a key.

I created a shell script which will call this python script with the temperature as argument. Then this script will post the readings to thingspeak.

Shell Script :
#!/bin/sh
SCRIPT=”/home/pi/playground/Adafruit_DHT_Driver/Adafruit_DHT 11 14″
TEMPERATURE=`$SCRIPT | grep “Temp” | awk -F ” ” ‘{print $3}’`
echo “$TEMPERATURE”
HITTHING=”/home/pi/playground/mycode/kandivali_temp $TEMPERATURE  “
THINGSPEAK=`$HITTHING`

Python Script :

#! /usr/bin/python
import datetime
import logging
import time
import httplib, urllib
import sys

# The feed id and API key that is needed
thingSpeakKey = “getyourownkey”
tempvar=”nil” 
for arg in sys.argv:
 tempvar = arg
if (tempvar != ‘/home/pi/playground/mycode/kandivali_temp’):
 print “Updating ThingSpeak “, time.strftime(“%A, %B %d at %H:%M:%S”) 

 params = urllib.urlencode({‘field1’: tempvar, ‘key’:thingSpeakKey})
 headers = {“Content-type”: “application/x-www-form-urlencoded”, “Accept”: “text/plain”}
 conn = httplib.HTTPConnection(“api.thingspeak.com:80”)
 conn.request(“POST”, “/update”, params, headers)
 response = conn.getresponse()
 print “Thingspeak Response:”, response.status, response.reason

 if (response.reason != ‘OK’):
  print “Problem, “, response.status, response.reason

Here are a few readings I got – https://thingspeak.com/channels/25022

Next step would be to merge the shell script with Python ( still learning ), and run this as a cron job every 3 minutes or so.

The above concept is “Hello World” equivalent of Internet of Things. I can connect to any sensor, and   when things go bad – ( lets say the temperature starts spiking ), can send a notification on a phone to someone. The possibilities are infinite.

Some Gotchas

* Pi is configured to UK Locale by default. When you hit Shift 2 ( to get the @ symbol ) you will get a Pound symbol – and so on. It is annoying. Just go to /etc/default/keyboard and set it to US and reboot.

* I connected an external Hard drive, and Pi was not detecting it. The external hard drive needed a power source before Pi could detect it.

* Pi can be connected to a USB port of the laptop. Need not  hunt for a free power slot. Figured this out after the usb power plug blew up.

* Looking at TV and typing tires the eyes. Instead set a Static DHCP IP and then ssh to pi using Putty if you are on windows  ( ssh pi@192.168.1.111, password raspberry ) and can use your laptop’s keyboard.

Happy Baking!

Way back in 2000, I first heard about man purse in a Seinfeld episode and had a good laugh. Little more than a decade later,  I find myself using one. Here is me defending in the court on why I use a man purse.

Your Honour, Men needed just a few essentials those days. A purse/wallet + keys, a mobile phone + a hand kerchief and a comb on the back pocket. Real men don’t need to carry a pocket note book. They write stuff and lose it behind credit card acknowledgements.

If you were a metrosexual male then you will need a deo, a face wash, a mouth freshner, a hair gel, a hair spray, a hand sanitizer, a hand moisturiser, a sunscreen etc. – you would have dragged all these in a suitcase – and guys like you would have been husbanded soon and you will still be dragging that suitcase but with the kids diaper or the missus’s stuff. I am digressing. Back to the defence.

Some men carry a book to impress women but then it is best carried in hand – otherwise what is the point.

Then iPods came. And we could still squeeze it in along with the cell phone. And on vacation men will typically wear those cargo pants with pockets near the kneecap and can carry a point and shoot, extra 8MB memory cards and even spare batteries. Not a problem. 

Then Steve jobs re-invented the phone and for a brief time I thought – wow – now I can carry my phone, iPod, book, music, camera – all in one. Back to good old 2 pocket days. 

I was so wrong. 

With more power, comes poor battery life. While on the road, heavy GPS Usage, or even reading and responding to emails on the move would drain battery and the phone will not last even half a day. 

So had to carry a battery backup, charger, and the cable. 

Then I started using the iPad and fell in love with it. It is so convenient to respond to emails, read a book, or a magazine or play those gorgeous games.. and I could not fold it and put it inside my pocket. 

Then I saw how women were enjoying a blissful life carrying all the paraphernalia in their hand bags.   Same time I spotted hipsters carrying those smart man purses and got tempted. Perhaps I should get one too. 

After I moved to Mumbai I felt liberated. No one gave a hoot to what you were doing. All are so engrossed in inventing an excuse for arriving late for a meeting – they do not have time to glance at you and pass a judgement. 

I kept looking – most looked like a laptop bag, or the sales man tried to sell a woman’s handbag..  and finally found the one made for me in a Hi Design Store.

Now it carries a lot many things – my bike papers, keys, smart cards, reserve cash, battery backup, battery backup’s backup, iPad, headphones, balaclava, cables, mouth fresher, deo… and so many that I am almost in the territory of a metrosexual man.

It gives a sense of peace – which is hard to describe. Your honour you have to experience this bliss. When you know your phone and iPad are fully charged and you can wait forever in a mall while the missus shops, or when waiting to pick up someone from the airport – you can listen to music without worry of draining the battery, or read a book, or write a blog post – like this one.

The defence rests its case. Hope the court will forgive me for laughing at the Man purse back in 2000.

And to my Man friends, get a Man Purse – why should women have all the fun!

Too many books to read…too short a life.

Here are my books roundup of 2010, 11, 12, 2013

After my 2013 post an ex-colleague of mine in TW, Apoorv, suggested some of his favourites.

Surely You’re Joking, Mr.Feynman!
by Richard P.Feynman

Feynman is this famous Theoretical Physicist who was involved in the top secret Atomic bomb project that brought World War II to an end. He also won the Nobel Prize for his work in Quantum Physics. Theoretical Physicists should be boring guys right? Wrong! He is one hell of a guy. The book is full of  pranks he played on others, observations of how ants march around and the experiments he did with them, how he mastered the drums in Brazil, how he learnt Portuguese, experienced astral projection on salt tanks.. it is an endless list. I am writing this post almost after a year and still Feynman’s jaunts are fresh in my memory.

Thanks to you Apoorv, 2014 got to a brilliant start.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman

Buoyed on by the success of Feyman, I took up this second book. It was outright hilarious to the core. How the demons will try to create havoc and everything will go wrong. The Omen kid will be a dud and they will try to salvage the situation.

But I quickly lost interest – this might be strange – but I was never a fan of the British style writing. Have given up on Ask Jeeves too – sorry Jeeves fans!

This book is hilarious at first but then I got bored quickly – the humour becomes monotonous and the laugh turned into a smile to an acknowledgement to a hmm and I stopped.

A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hoseni

What was I thinking when I picked this one up. Perhaps it was too much humour and I wanted to bury myself in sorrow. This book started alright, but it got darker and darker. And more darker and more depressing. And even more depressing and more tragedy started coming in endless procession. Mariam and her husband’s second wife with her baby try to run away to Pakistan from Kabul and they get cheated and were sitting in the Police station pleading the policeman not to tell their husband. And I could not take it any longer.

Stay away from this even if you are a sucker for these kind of stories – will put you in depression all day. Why does anyone write these things?…. sheesh.

Buddha ( Volumes 1 thru 7 )
By Osama Tezuka

This is a Manga style comic and is a brilliant portrayal of Buddha and his life. And ton of work has gone into creating this magnum opus. Each page has got so much detail that I would not like to turn the page. Have to take it in slowly and let the content sink in. I first planned to read one volume a month. But by May I could not wait any longer and finished the rest in May itself.

Strongly recommend – won’t make you a Buddhist – yes there are a few Buddhist gyan spread out – but its too less and not impactful – but you will enjoy the story of how a religion was born and how Buddha struggled all along.

Adultery
By Paulo Coelho

My all time favourite author’s new book. Was a dud. A perfect challenging life as a Journalist, a loving Husband, two kids, living in the best place on earth – Switzerland and she decides to ruin it all by committing adultery – why? Well read the book for the pages and pages of justification.

Towards the end she and her husband do a para gliding session and she becomes an eagle in her mind and reforms herself – this part is why I worship Paulo Coelho. Just for this brief part towards the end I forgive you Paulo! Awaiting your next book.

And you can give this a pass. And Winner stands alone too. Pick up any work of his and get yourself spiritually entertained.

Three Body Problem
by Cixin Liu

This is a Science Fiction out of China – not that well known but it should be. I rank it along with Dune and Enders World. Involves Aliens and Multi Dimensions.

If Interstellar gave you a headache because of 4 dimensions in the end –  the story goes into 11 dimensions. There is Virtual Reality, bit of History of Civilisation and Quantum Physics, Spirituality, Aliens and Nano material.

Very strong recommendation if you are a Sci Fi fan. Will love every page of this book.

Jupiter Travels : Four Years Around the World on a Triumph 
by Ted Simon

Mid 2014 I got stuck by the Biking virus – which seems to be striking all middle aged men. And one day I had to spend 6 hours in Delhi airport waiting for my flight. Was researching on bikes and stumbled on this very interesting book and thanks to Kindle had it in my iPad in no time and started reading. Oh I love technology. Years back in Bangalore, I read about an author called Neal Stephenson in Wired magazine and hunted for his books all across Bangalore – but could not find a single work of his. Later I got his books in Kindle.

Back to this book – this crazy British journalist decides to take his Triumph bike around the world. He starts just before the Egyptian war with Israel and rides his bike right across Africa till the very tip – and what a journey he has – with punctures, accidents, miraculous escapes, help from kind souls, thieves. He has a very holier than thou attitude at the beginning but it eases off and starts appreciating people more as the story progresses.

The story slows down after he crossed the Atlantic and is arrested and kept under lock up in a Brazil police station after being suspected of espionage. He is out now and is travelling across Argentina. I open this book whenever I am stuck with the routine virus – my passport to a different alternate life – as I ride pillion with him experiencing what his soul experienced some 5 decades back.

HyperSpace
By Michio Kaku

Interstellar woke up the suppressed curiosity in me about Space and Multi Dimensions.

This is a good book that tries to follow the hunt for the Grand Unified Theory. The new developments in Quantum Physics and how close are we to unravelling the truth about the universe. Reading this helped me understand Three body problem better on how the secret to the Universe is hidden in the sub atomic particles.

If you have read Brief History of time, which was written some 2 decades back I guess, this is a good continuation of it and covers the astonishing progress we have made during this time.

And for 2015…

The Martian

Already half way through – simply brilliant – this is the 2014 Book of the year as voted by GoodReads. And one of the important characters in the book is the head of Mars Mission – his name is Venkat Kapoor – and I find it very distracting 🙂

Being Mortal

I already got a recommendation for this by Prakash from my college.

One of Chetan Bhagat’s 

This year want to read Indian authors, and want to read the most successful writer of our times.

The Suitable Boy

It has got 1500 pages or so.. bring it on.

Bhagwad Gita 

The Art of Living course is based upon Bhagwad Gita. Also it is one of my life plans to read all the holy books across all religions. Let me start with the one easily accessible.

Calculus 

It is all rusted, and want to start from basics again – so I can understand String Theory and continue my Physics education. If you know of any good book do suggest me.

Got back from an exhilarating trip to Chennai.

I was filled with nostalgia – partly because of the campus, partly my old friends – and laughed my heart out like good old days.

However there were times when was discussing the not so happy moments. Will eat the frog first and get it out of the way.

Old Age and Cancer

We are all peeking into middle age, and our parents are peeking into old age. With it brings its own challenges. We are still building our careers and with both husband and wife working nowadays  it is difficult to provide round the clock care to our parents who need total care. A few of us are going through this phase now.

For San and I – after having relocated to Mumbai – we have no family / friend support system like we had in Bangalore – it is quite a challenge. Luckily there is a Startup in this area – Portea Medicals and they supply trained nursing attendants to come home and look after the patient. This might sound as a plug for Portea, but truth is – I am really thankful for this startup for their service – and also I am doing what I recommend  my Customers to do more (  http://venkat2.blogspot.in/2014/12/fight-good-fight-startups.html –  on Customers – Trust us, Refer Us )

The next thing we discussed was cancer. It has become as common as Heart Attack or Diabetes. A friend and his brother, a Pancreatic Cancer Specialist himself, were presented with a choice for their mother suspected of a cancerous growth and they together decided to skip surgery.  Thankfully the diagnose turned out to be negative. Also heard of stories where the battle was won.

Surgery is expensive, and it leaves the human body in tatters – and does not guarantee non occurrence. Not only that – the drugs they inject are expensive, and zero research happens in India – these drugs were tested on Western Patients – are they even suitable for our Gene Pool?

It is a tough choice and I dread to make a decision like this for my near and dear.

For myself I know what I want if such a day comes and I have to decide for myself – it will be love,whiskey wine and morphine – after this little inspiring article I read in ET recently.

So with this my friends, having eaten the frog – lets move on to the other fun stuff!

Passion

One of my friends – a final year Project mate of mine – is dabbling in short films and wants to direct a full featured film – there was a session on Passion – and I believe it would have fanned the flame in his heart. Go for it boss – the journey is what matters! #weRcheering4U

And the session was a riot – moderated by a “colourful” Super senior of us from 1984/85 batch – his CEG achievement – he was suspended for 6 months for having involved in a messy fight – when he stood up for his batch mates against ragging by seniors!

Madhan Karky, an ex-CEGian and also an ex-Professor of CompSci Dept was in the panel. He happens to be the son of the famous lyricist Vairamuthu. He explained how hard it is for him to make a mark in the film industry – under the shadow of a giant. He also said how he is mixing his passion ( writing lyrics ) with his CompSci background ( he writes code to mine rhymes ). #impressed

Entrepreneurs

A good friend of mine has started up in Silicon Valley – by my calculation it will be the 9th Startup to come out of 1998 EEE batch. Some day I will be able to write a full book on this prodigy batch of CEG!

One of my batchmates has now grown his Startup to a 200 employee company and is planning to take it to 500. #hellyeah

Another – a second generation entrepreneur has turned around a business, and is setting sights on the global market. Another has put his current one on cruise control, and is starting a new one. Some are in between jobs and twiddling their thumbs whether to start up.

Also I bumped into a 1960s pass out golden senior! He had recommended our startup to his community in the early days and even arranged for a demo with the management committee. I was so happy to see him .

Had lot of learnings on hiring, marketing, scaling.. With friends you can be open and candid – wish I had more time to chat. Was just like old days – when we used to study for exam and exchange notes – felt the same camaraderie still.

The biggest take away for me was to plan my work life and home life better. Right now it is tilted way too much towards work. One of my batch mates is single handedly managing both the company and home. #respect #inspired

The Trichy Story

One has relocated to Trichy from Bangalore and was heavily marketing the city – like how Narendra Modi campaigns for Gujarat – on how the BPO industry works, how it is super easy to get a CA for a song, how the rate is set for all skill sets ( pst..pst.. cartel  ) – something you never get to see in a magazine or TV expose!

And my friend is planning to run for an election here. Hats off buddy.. be the change. We are with you in this. #yeswecan

Make in India

I missed all the morning sessions ( long story – not important ). Post lunch attended sessions – one was on Make in India. It was about Manufacturing Industry. The challenges are different. Like poor quality vendor suppliers or lack of quality labour or BE students who do not know any of the technical jargon – having come out of a Tamil Medium. And what these industry stalwarts are doing to change things. #hatsoff

Also there was a heavy dose of advise for the students to take industry internships seriously and not just go there to hang out – but get on the shop floor and learn all they can during that time. It left me squirming in my seat – once I had an opportunity to spend the semester vacation in an Electrical company in Coimbatore but I choose to spend time at Orissa with my parents. Sitting there, 18 years later I realised I missed a great experience.  #waterhasflown

Health

A few of us have a healthy paunch! While it is a sign of prosperity – it is also a warning sign. Whenever discussion meandered into the belly girth, I suggested Standing Desk. Sit only for 1 to 1 meetings or to take phone calls, but when you are working – stand. Also try to have standing meetings – meetings are short, people speak less, are attentive and it is healthy.

Remember the new slogan – Sitting is the new Smoking!

Run, Cycle to work, Take Stairs, Standing desk – so many things one can mix in a daily routine. Yes I do it all! Was telling someone – I lost my dad to high BP and heart attack. My mother has diabetes – and I am not letting genetics decide my end game. #togoodhealthforall

So thats all folks.

May CEG and its tribe shine brighter & forever!