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A Week Without “Appa”

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Quiet. How I'd like it to be sometimes. I went to the temple almost every day. I didn't have anyone asking me, “Appa, are we done?” I could just cement myself there, without hurry, for a few hours. I could recite the Rudram without somebody tugging at my sleeve. And yet, every now and then, I would think that it would have been nice to have the kids there too. I didn't have to worry about picking up Akhil or Sahana from somewhere. I didn't get messages from my wife asking me to make a pit stop at the Indian store or Costco. I didn't have to look at the clock and suddenly remember that someone had basketball or tennis. It was as though life had come to a standstill. And I liked it. In the middle of a normal workday, I could be in an important meeting when Akhil would come charging into the room. “Appa, please approve.” For a brief second, I wouldn't even understand what he was asking. Then I would realize that I had absentmi...
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Explaining iPad

Yeah, the new iPad is out, and of course, there are tons of guys(including me) who want to get their hands on the new gadget from Apple.  My father-in-law, who knows as much about technology as I know about fashion and style, remarked that he had heard about the new iPad.  He had not even seen an iPhone, nor an iPod and of course, none of the previous iPads.  But, looking at the way the Apple brand is gaining traction among the crowd, I was least surprised. So, today, as the rains lashed Sunnyvale, we thought the best option would be to explore the malls.  Once we entered the mall, obviously, we entered the Apple store.  We wanted to introduce him to the iPad.  We compared the iPad 2 and the new iPad, and tried to ascertain differences other than the ones listed on the Apple website.  After he had the initial feel for the device, and impressed by the touch sensitivity of the screen, he set it aside. I was still not finished with the introduction. ...
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The stock market expert

I am currently reading Michael Lewis's Boomerang: Travels in the new third world , a hilarious account of the events that led to the economic meltdown in Iceland, Greece and Ireland, and of course, eventually, the rest of the world.  Iceland's situation was due to the fact that every fisherman wanted to be a financial investor, Greece's was due to inflated accounts and Ireland's was due to the collapse of the banking structure. Iceland was especially funny, because I could exactly relate to what happened.  I am not a fisherman, but I did turn a financial investor with fantastic results.  So, let me tell you three stories; these stories changed the way I invest. The first story was pretty devastating as an early investor.  After making tons of mistakes by investing in worthless companies, I thought it was time I took on the big guns.  I realized that if you actually want to make money, it should be done not by volume but by the quality of the stock. ...
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New year resolutions

The first time my fifth or sixth grade school teacher asked me about my new year resolutions, I looked at her with a blank expression.  I had no idea what that meant.  And, I would have had no further idea for years to come if, I repeat, if she had not asked us to come up with essays on the topic.  That was also the year I was introduced to the concept of writing your own essays.  Till then, it was about cramming a few sentences in your head and spitting it out verbatim in the exam papers. I asked a few blokes around me as to what resolutions meant.  All of them were as intelligent as I was, save for a few exceptions.  These guys were writing as if their whole lives were about to be shaped by this composition. They formed a kind of protective enclosure, with notebooks and text books surrounding the sheet on which they were writing, on three sides.  The fortress had an opening only for the pen or pencil to find its way through the gap.  And the...
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Of Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Every year, I wonder what Thanksgiving is all about.  I take a look at Wikipedia, understand what it's all about and then the following year, take a look at the same article again.  This year, I did the same.  But, at the start of every year, when the list of holidays is released by the HR department, you will find it hard to miss that you're getting four days off in the last week of November.  The Friday that follows the Thanksgiving Thursday is referred to as the Black Friday , which is a massive day for shopping.  This is the day when the retailers give you a big discount by bumping up the prices beforehand.  OK, some of the items are actually dirt cheap, but most of them are such that they can be purchased at any time of the year.   The US is filled with deals and promotions almost all year round.  Thanksgiving weekend is just another excuse to shell out money for products that you actually did not know you required.  Before the Thanks...
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An engineer's conundrum

Engineering degree is at a premium in India.  At the same time, every other guy is an engineer.  I don't know whether it's the job market or the social status, everybody wants to be an engineer.  Put everything aside.  First become an engineer and then you can worry about the other stuff later. There is nothing like brimming with pride when you go home and tell your folks, "I hit a century in the local cricket match." "Okay, okay, all that's fine.  What about your exams in the coming week? Are you prepared for that?" It may be wrong to say that this is applicable only for engineers; I think it is true that this holds for medicine as well. It is a matter of pride to say, "illa ree nammaga doctor alla engineeringay odhbekuantha iddhane (My son wants to study doctor or engineering only)." I used to secretly wonder What is meant by studying for doctor? Isn't it medicine? So, as I pursued my passion for engineering, and completed fou...
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Two of an era - Jobs and Ritchie

The last couple of weeks have been particularly bad for technology related stalwarts.  If the death of Steve Jobs hadn't even sunk in, it was even more painful to read up that Dennis Ritchie, the father of C programming and co-developer of Unix was no more.  Dennis Ritchie may not be as famous as Steve Jobs is to the layman, but there is no denying that without C, one cannot fathom the existence of these super powered smart phones and almost every other embedded device today. It was in my Engineering that I was first exposed to C.  Already, the message was spreading quick and fast. If you miss even a single semi-colon, you are in trouble.  It is so difficult to debug.  And, maybe for the fun of  it, somebody added a comma as well.  Given a choice, my fellow batch mates would have added every punctuation mark to exaggerate the whole thing.  There were also suggestions that it was mandatory to add two slashes after a semi-colon as a part of the p...
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Turning 30

I was getting up, and slowly my email inbox was getting filled with the usual suspects.  These people never fail to email me on my birthday.  I had a few calls as well.  Again, these people never fail to call me on my birthday.   So, how's the feeling? Pretty much the usual, I replied back. So, turning 30, haan? Everyone had to ask this, unfailingly and unflinchingly. Yeah, I let out a couple of the usual, monotonous jokes.  It means, they don't deserve to be called jokes in the first place. In the midst of all the jokes , I also tried to act all grown up (am sure I failed miserably at this). I have to say that Afridi and I have a lot of things in common apart from a few obvious differences.  Firstly, he is supposed to be a totally hot cricketer, according to the girls.  OK, even the guys know it.  I leave it to my friends to judge whether this is a similarity or a difference.  They know it.  I know it, too. Secondly, Afri...
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