| Setting Goal

Last week sent shivers down the spine for many, when world’s largest and strongest economy was down graded by S & P. Till that time the talk was about the debt of Greece and a possible default. It was worrying as any default by a country will have serious impact to the financial systems what we have or created in this world.

Increasing the debt sealing in US for running the day to day affair of the country was a shock for everyone, and to add fuel S & P downgraded the US debt. Stock market allover the world tumble on this news, price of crude oil went down, people rushed to buy gold to park the money in safe place. So its all worry and panic around the fictitious thing called money, Being Europe in not a good position and Euro not in any better shape, there is no way in recent future Euro will replace USD, and no Saddam there to stage a Euro centric oil industry against US.

Now with all the bad news around I started thinking to get things in shape and good for me, yes I mean change the things which I can control.

I am not a real sports person or rather say didn’t understand much of the sports, Few things which interest me are walking, running, long drives and lazy beaches. Trekking become a craze from past few months. Thanks to many of my colleagues. But that is only on weekend and rest of the days goes with little or no activity.

So the desire to change was getting strong and first thing in the list was to stop smoking, I am really experienced in the process of stop smoking, I even lost the count of failed attempts I had!!!, but in the last couple of times I took the failure serious and every time kept a log of things with reason for failure, triggers and list of events, so this journal is kept for long time and this time when I quit I was sure I am going to succeed. To reach the goal I started running daily, now I cover 10+ Kilometer without breaking my lungs!!!

This prologue about my goal of keeping fit, will write about my stop smoking journey next, my experience and what worked for me. If that help anyone to stop, it’s a bonus.


You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough - Mae West

Arrogance and being self confident

Moving to a new region I never experienced in my life made me think about this, what is the thin line between being arrogant and self confident. My opinion on this is highly debatable, my views are based on the race and culture of people I had a chance to interact with and in many cases was able to build a healthy a relation. So not getting into the regional diplomacy and ethics I developed, I started to feel that we are in cross road where people believe self confidence is almost equal to be arrogant

Becoming an arrogant person is based on various foundations, like the status, the money, education, good looks and the list goes on. So whatever the base reason that becomes the assumed superiority of thinking I am better than you, the arrogant person will enrich his list of admirers and enemies. Being arrogant, in most cases the person feel insecure about their current status and want to make sure the same will continue, most arrogant people are not cruel, they are afraid of losing the power they have and this thinking make them behave in a particular pattern. So my view of being arrogant is because the person is very insecure about the status or position he holds. It is about chasing others to make sure the as -is will hold true for ever.

Self confident I believe is a different breed of people they believe in themselves and what they do. They believe they are in control of their life and accept responsibility for the actions. Most self confident people will be flexible and ready to listen to the view of others, they are not challenged by others and wont believe that those around will steal whatever they have. Self confident person will go assertive than being aggressive and wont hide anything about their life, because they believe themselves. Self confident will accept the changes as normal part of life and will say “why not” for any given opportunity than asking “WHY?” They tend to negotiate rather than argue or fight, so precisely those who are self confident won’t be those who rise voice and argue to get their point put forward, rather they listen and get into the conclusion.

Here you see the reason why I started feeling that we are equating arrogance to self
confidence, those around with an arrogant behavior and push things around are considered the most preferred and capable, this is the tragedy competition brings to us, where people feel insecure rather than self confident where we end up waiting for the enemy to destroy our kingdom, and live a horrible life where you don’t do anything meaningful or what you enjoy in life. Knowledge make you humble is growing in my mind.

Dharma

“From Dharma flow wealth and pleasure. Then why is dharma not pursued?”
Mahabharata put this question in front of us and the other un-answered question in the epic is from Draupadi who asked Yudhishtira when he lost her on the game of dice “Whom did you lose first, yourself or me?” And none was able to answer this question except giving some reasons. “Dharma” is the word or an idea described in Rigveda and it has evolved and enriched itself through a process of contestation and adaptation. So the meaning of dharma is evolving and will evolve till this world exists.

Cloud computing, the paradigm changer

Cloud computing is the new trend setter now. SOA and cloud are the concepts taking rounds in the IT houses. Concepts or SOA is considerably older than cloud computing and various flavors of SOA definition and realization is happening in the industry. Cloud is quiet new and there are not many real time business systems running on cloud yet.

Now back to the basics what is cloud computing, there are many detentions around, Wikipedia define it as “a style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure in the "cloud" that supports them.” This definition is in line and agree with the Gartner definition of cloud as “a style of computing in which massively scalable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered ‘as a service’ to multiple customers using Internet technologies.”

So now one thing is clear internet technologies play the vital role in cloud computing and service orientation has a greater role to play. Once the cloud computing becomes a reality we will see massive change happening in the computing world. Today consider any big organization which may be in financial services, retail, manufacturing or any other, most of them run IT organizations inside, which sometime is larger or equivalent to the size of the core business function group. Once the concept of cloud becomes reality these organizations may get rid of all this large inventory of computer resources and support personal for them. This precisely means you start concentrating on your core business. So you free your CEO from worrying about the IT strategy for next one year.

Indian IT outsourcing has lot to think/worry about cloud once it get mature and become the de-facto norm of the computing world. Our business run around support and maintaining the existing custom made programs. We love time and material (T&M) with all the frills than doing a fixed bid business, but sadly we are not new to the business now, Indian IT is growing and flourishing from past 15+ years, we can’t call ourselves new to the business. Why we still not able to get ahead of our T & M business? it’s like the Puru and Alexander war, Puru had a great army but was never able to keep them together for achieving the goal, lack of team work or rather say being reluctant to work in a team made a great king to fail. Alexander appreciated the courage and skills of Puru, and was very sure if Puru’s team done a good job he will never win.

Indian IT and many companies go in the same dilemma, people and teams duplicating the work and same company having multiple initiatives which all have a same goal and don’t know what other is doing. Team work lacks and ego and self interests take precedence to the organization goal, who to blame? The middle management who run this show or the vacuum created by middle and upper management who by the virtue of being in the company for long stay in strategical positions? Or the board and C executives who worry only about the quarter to quarter performance.

So what our culture has to do with SOA and cloud? A great deal actually, with the current way of working Indian IT failed to make any substantial product or IP and we lost thought leadership for silly politics and ego where those who can talk good English and play the cards become the ring masters. In-depth understanding and willingness to change is never been part of these successful people, they play their card to the tune of number games set by the top management. Number of direct reports and the designation become the yard stick of success. It is sad to see that position of a business analyst or technical architect become so low in the Indian IT where everyone wants to be a manager, and for being a manager none really worry about knowing the domain they deal with. This is the sad part, this is where we are failing.

We lack real research and consulting practices, we didn’t grow yet from the service mentality to a value driven delivery where the motto is to change the way your partner work. We expect our clients to say what they want to do and we will follow the order, the moment they put a question or show ambiguity on what need to be done, we call them confused and lack clarity.

So what we lost and what we losing is genuine concern, and cloud and SOA will change the centre of this game we playing, there is no advancement or serious research going into SOA or cloud or for that matter to any emerging concepts in Indian IT, it’s all lead by large US and European organizations or niche players outside India. Cloud computing as told will pose a challenge, current Indian IT runs the support business for big financial, aero, retail organizations. Once the cloud come to the central stage these organizations will no more require any outsourcing of IT functions (Business support will exist which is more of a BPO/ KPO). IT will move to the cloud players like the Amazon, Google or IBM and we will start sub-contracting to them for supporting the cloud, our story will not change, the talented technical pool will still be required and sought after by these players and our companies will compete in showing the growth in head count and Q to Q percentage growth.

More and more people will get frustrated with IT and they will start theme restaurants or move to organic farming to live the comfortable life, is the time come for Indian IT to re-think strategy and invest in research and invest in future than just worrying about the next quarter results?

Monuments created in web

The concept of “Aatma” and the belief of it being free from annihilation are getting a new twist in the internet world. Current human society has an immense presence in the web, which start from e-mail accounts to blogging and personal pages. Online communities are becoming the medium of communication for the new generation where the boundaries are buried by internet. Day to day issues and even advice for many challenges brought by life is discussed in these networking sites. People are no more worried about being open about their feelings and let others knowing their real Identity.

This internet world opened another possibility for the human race, till date existence of the dead was through the work they created and this is true for a smaller percentage of artists and other celebrities. Common man come and goes in the world without leaving any footprint or mark in the society. An old photograph or some singed documents or letters are the only way to know these people. Generations never understood their thought process and the situations they sailed as there won’t be any record of the same. Our understanding about our grand fathers and great grand fathers are very limited and never had a complete understanding of the environment they lived.

Here the internet is bringing a change, presence in the web world is becoming increasingly essential for the human and people connect and share. Sharing include the personal information, major events in life and whatever one felt need to be shared. This process is creating an autobiography for every individual without his complete knowledge and less with the pain of penning down a book. Scattered thoughts and messages in networking sites like facebook, orkut and linkedin etc. can be arranged chronologically to understand a person better and the ups and downs of his life.

We all will move out from this world on a fine day, but internet will keep our presence felt to generations coming as current social network sites are not deleting any record any person. You never know in another 50 or 100 years they will decide to go for a policy where they will safely remove the accounts where age of the person exceed 100 or 150 based on the date of birth provided, but that didn’t exist now and hope will note come into force. If this stands true all human beings having a web presence will continue their virtual life indefinite.
Does this hurt the feeling of close relatives, I don’t know nor able to assess. I think there will be lot of birthday wishes and remembrance messages getting posted on the “message board” of people who passed away. There will be close relatives going to these pages just to have a look and feel strong about the person again and again. It gives kind a communication channel to them even though it is one-way, but still you can scrap your thoughts about the person in the web rather than just thinking about him looking at a photo. Is this a boon or disadvantage I don’t know as I have no firsthand experience.

We are in a world where the existence of a person didn’t end on the day he pass away, his thoughts and presence will exist for longer time even if he is neither a revolutionary nor a celebrity. This will help the coming generations to link their roots and get to know better about their previous generations.

Avtar

Saw the film today, the so talked about film of this decade where every critic applauded and all the leading news paper and everyone talk about the film as one of the best films ever made and going with a strong 10/10 rating in all news paper reviews.

I agree that it’s a film you may want to see in a 3D format because of the richness of shots and color combination in the film, it’s really a soothing color experience as lot of green and blue used with clear understanding of the color combinations, so as a picture (not movie) this is a good experience, the concept or backbone of the story mixed with the Hindu epics and beliefs didn’t hold very strong, you will have 2.5 hour experience of great visual experience, but the real experience of a movie is missing here, the story line or concept is good and message is good, but this is not a Cameron film I will accept as the best ever made. The story and message got lost in the flashy set and the graphics, visual experience is overpowering the message, it is like a beautiful dump women. I still feel other Cameron films are much better than Avtar, Especially Titanic where the viewer is given a great experience without 3D and this entire graphics. Strong story and characterization made Titanic a great film of recent time, this is the place Avtar is failing, except for the visual experience, there is nothing you carry home, once you leave the movie hall.

I am not asking you to avoid this movie, sure you go and watch this and be sure to watch it in 3D format, the visual experience is good, but don’t expect anything outside it, this is nowhere near to movies like Life is beautiful and god father kind of movies.

Tathwamasi

Starting alphabet in all Indian languages (correct me if I am worng, as far I know) is “Aa” which made me curious to find what is the historic reason to have this identity in many cases, sure I don’t think it is an issue if we start the alphabets with anything else, language is not mathematics which need to follow a sequence in the alphabetic order. Meaning come from the words not from the alphabets, its perfect to have the alphabets in any order you like, but still the similarity exist.


The search definitely yield results, from some of our old mythological text (Bhagavatam) I got a logical answer to this, with my limited knowledge and intelligence let me narrate what I understood.

Let me clarify few things before we get into the importance of “Aa”, this is the base of this whole thought process, the world, and many educated believe that Hinduisam is based on multiple gods/goddesses and devotion to deities (deity, god, divine etc). on the periphery it all looks true and Hindu’s believe in various gods because of some historical reasons, it can be Ram, Shiva, Ganesh, Krishna, Kaali, and the list seems never ending. The reality stay bit different from here in the mythology, they definitely talk about all this and the good things they done for humanity and reason for each of this AVATAR. But “Bhagavatm” give a clear reason for all this and how this comes to existence. “Bhagavatam” get into the details of this and gives a clear definition of god. This definition clearly state that the god has no shape, no interest towards anyone or anything, never sad or happy, nor affected by all the things happen in this world. This definition leads to multiple issues of current hindu beliefs, where the base is on some defined structure of god, that can be ram, Krishna or shiva etc.

The prudent question here is why then all this names come into hindu way of worshipping god, it’s simple to answer, to reach the ultimate which has no shape we need to start with some defined structure, as like in any known field, learning computer programming demand you to start with the flow charts and pseudo codes, but once the programmer mature he will achieve the same or better results without the aid of a flow chart. Same way to understand the ultimate truth we need a stepping stone and all these known gods will try to take you there, to this supreme power which has no shape, nor can be defined or imagined in a way.

If you had the patience to read this much, you can understand the logic of ‘Aa’ as starting alphabet, in bhagavatam, Krishna is considered as the ultimate god or “Brahmam”. Brahmam say that he is the greatest of all great things, so he is “Aa” in alphabet, which means learning a language start with the concept of Brahmam. Then you start acquiring knowledge, this knowledge start with all material things around, which defenitly lead you to enjoy and understand them the way you want, once you attain this knowledge complete, you will start looking for the power which is asking or making you to do all this, this will lead you to a state, where you will realize what you searching for is inside you, or you are that, that is called “Aham Bramhasmi” so the learning for a human being start with ‘Aa” and ends in “Aham Brhmasmi” where you see the “Brahman inside you”. This is called “Tathwamasi” realizing that you and god are same, that’s the final stage you can attain in your life.

Beautiful concept and I am sure I have not narrated it in an exciting way, but this thought or understanding of this basic structure sure gave me lot of insight. So the learning starts from “Aa” and end at “Aham Brahmatsmi”.