Wrapping up

So finally my days in Delhi (or rather Noida) have come to an end. Just another 3 days to go. The project work finally got completed. Though we kept thinking about improvements, but nothing seemed to make it any better. I completed documenting it in doxygen, commenting the code and also a general writeup about the whole thing. Since about two days, I’ve been looking for work to do. There is really nothing left now. I’ve to still keep coming to office for the next 3 days from 10 to 6.

Independent for the first time

Past two months have been great. Landing in a new city alone for the first time, looking for a place to live without dad to help me out, roaming in unknown places using maps, asking people around, etc. Then, in the middle came the big tension of being extravagent. So from 21st of May, I decided to write down every transaction and expenditure, be it as less as 1 INR. Now, not only do I have a log of the expenditures till 17 June, but also a log of the places I went to, where did I eat, from where to where did I travel and by what means. This log isn’t of much importance in the sense of money matters, but I’ll still go through it once to recall everything.

Places I visited

I saw some new places in Delhi. I had visited Delhi before this only once, and I remember to have visited India Gate and Qutub Minar. This time I went to see public places like Cannaught place, Palika Bazar, Metro, Lotus temple, India Gate, Appu ghar and Oysters park, PVR Priyas, PVR Spice, and CS Mall in Noida. I also went to a pub for the first time in my life, namely TGI Fridays and Aliens Foot. I also went to a disc for the first time in my life here. Its named RPM.

I didn’t go to

Well, even this time I didn’t see Delhi completely. I missed seeing Akhshardham temple, Gurgaon, Red fort, Chandni chauk, and whatever places I didn’t mention in the above list. I’ll come here soon. Lets see.

People I met

I met quite a number of new people in this place. One of them is my dear net friend, sms friend, phone friend and now a friend-in-person, Snopy aka Alvy. She is a nice girl, too bindaas and all. Sometimes forgets me for weeks in her careless attitude. But thats okay, shes expected to act dumb and careless hehe.

I came to know some students from IITs who are interns here. They are Sandeep and Rohit. Most of my interaction in this office has been confined to Sandeep since a few days. He is a nice simple guy with no worries in life. He can be naughty at times, and irritating. But he is nice. And well he is good at maths too. At least faster than me in algebra. He has been a great help in solving some of the complex equation which play a major role in my project.

I came to know Phanindra aka Phani. He is one of my seniors from IIIT and my project lead too. He is too nice and friendly to be called a project leader. He has been working on this project of mine as a partner rather. And its so easy to approach him, talk to him, roam around, eat bhuttas, sit adjacent in movies (company outing… movie: Fanaa). Nikhil keeps teasing him all the time, hehe. He is a great guy and I like him as well as respect him.

I met Piyush sir again. He is as he was, nice, friendly and with a great voice. Even here he is a bond and people approach him for tricky problems. Though I didn’t interact much on the project front, but he has been a help in some of the problems I faced.

I met another great guy called Gautam. Another Linux lover like me. Actually a pure linux user unlike me. He is also nice, friendly, casual, jovial natured. Sits right behind me and keeps talking about Linux and related stuff. He has suggested me to try out Gentoo. Lets see if I get my hands on it sometime. We also went to a movie together.

Though I didn’t meet Dipinder (whos the head here), but still all of us admire his communication skills and the way he makes everyone feel comfortable. It has been a nice experience to work with him. Also I met our HR manager, Miss Rakhi. She has been more like a school teacher, pushing small kids to work. But then now when I think about it, I can only smile about it.

Other people I came into contact, which were again employees of Kritikal are Tarun, NS sir, NT sir, Deepak sir, and others. They all have been nice and friendly too.

I didn’t meet

I didn’t meet the only person who knew me from back home in Delhi. That is Anurag bhaiya. He is one of our neighbours back home and works in Airtel here. He was supposed to be the first one to be contacted after landing in Delhi. But I haven’t met him yet, though we talked on phone as late as June! I haven’t ever seen him in my lifetime though.

What did I get

I got a new experience of being independent. I learnt how to manage money and maybe sometimes spending it mindlessly. I learnt how to bargain in Palika bazar. I learnt to be punctual, come on time, keep working during working hours and leave on time.

I understood some new concepts in opencv, doxygen and linux. I came to use NFS which I hadn’t seen anywhere in college. I learnt from Phani, how to plan and work, instead of working in any random direction.

Whats next?

Now, I am returning home on 1 July by Intercity express. I’ll reach there by 2nd noon. Then I’ll meet friends and family, fill up my GRE form, and leave for IIIT by 5th or so. I’ve to rebegin my Computer Vision project there. And I have to complete my J2ME project. I’ve to talk to Jawahar sir for leaving in the middle and restart work on the BTP too. Next semester is going to be light. Less subjects, less working days. I might be able to sneak out to home in the middle if the schedule is less busy. Lets see.

Conclusion

These days in Noida have been wonderful. Some of them were somewhere in the dreamworld. Some of them were sad and rude. But most have been good, full of energy, zeal to work, some fun days with friends, and what not. I am going to leave Noida in a happy note. Three cheers for Noida, Kritikal, these days and me.

Hip hip hurray !! Hip hip hurray !! Hip hip hurray !!

Ciao.

Live in reality

If we put on pink colored glasses, everything looks pink. If its just momentary, then we remember whats reality. But then, if we keep them on for like two days, we might start thinking that the world is pink. Its only when the rosy glasses come out that you see the reality. Its not that the reality is worse than the rosy world. There are more colors in the real world per say. So, there are advantages and disadvantages.

Last month, I sneaked out for a movie in office hours. I thought that all people have been so good to me. So no one will bother if I took a little break. But I had broken rules. Immediately the HR manager called me up and asked me to return. That day one of the rosy glasses got shattered. I came to the realities of working in a company. That day I was very angry with her, but then today I realize that its better to remain in senses that to go into the rosy world and then shatter it.

Every person is different in their own way. And everyone has a certain opinion towards you. Everyone has a degree of closeness to you, from either side. Everyone has some things which are their own. Some people come so close that there is nothing hidden. Whereas in some other cases, a person maintains a protective canopy around him/her so that we can’t go beyond it.

If we keep living with a world in which all people are very close to you, you expect that everyone of them will tell you everything. But we’re not some colgate packets made in bulk. Every human is designed in a unique way. Having high expectations, and having expectations beyond a limit can be really dangerous. Not only can it lead to quarrel but it will then shatter your rosy glasses. This time its not just removing them, but shattering them, so that the glass pieces pierce your eyes and blood starts dripping.

Maybe you’ll feel I am sad or angry. But I am actually relieved. I’ve managed to survive after something similar happened to me. And now, I swear I’ll never leave the reality. I’ll not fall for fancy looking words. I’ll stick to hard facts. I’ll live in this real world. Maybe its bad, harsh, rude or anything. Maybe there is loneliness, sadness, pain. But at least I know its for real.

Stateless and stateful

Mathematical functions are stateless. Something like sin (0) is 0, cos (0) is 1 and so on. Mathematics is such a pure mechanism that everything has an 'exact' proof. But most things in life aren't like that. Most things give different results at different times.

Try this out. Go and ask someone his name. The replies could go something like this.

Whats your name? Anurag.

Whats your name? Anurag.

Whats your name? (louder) Anurag.

Whats your name? Anurag Singh Rana.

Whats your name? (clearly one word at a time) Anurag Singh Rana.

Whats your name? are you mad? Buzz off.

Now try some maths.  Open your calculator.

2+2? 4

2+2? 4

2+2? 4

2+2? 4

2+2? 4

4 ….. till the battery is down ;) 

Anyways, this was to demonstrate that the state of a person/object plays an important role on how it reacts. Even in programs, an object of some class returns different values based on its state (namely the data members).

It is very necessary to understand the state of a person before you interact with him/her. Some people understand it well. And some others are more like stateless machines. They think that human behavior matters only because of 'big' events in life, like some calamity or some great success. They fail to notice the minor variations due to things as minute as a friendly glance.

But this state itself can be a problem sometimes. A bad mood can make a small problem look like a huge hurdle. It can make people take decisions as big as committing suicide. When one is busy in work, it doesn't matter if he is sad. Its because slowly he'll forget the problems and get involved in work. But when someone is alone, or missing someone, its a different story all together. He/she has nothing else to do but keep thinking. With a bad mood and empty mind, only negative thoughts accumulate. He/she fails to look at the good things happening in his/her life and begins to cry about the bad happenings and unfair things in life.

This pattern suggests that some part of every person is stateful and some part is stateless. Being completely stateless makes a person insensitive and hard. He might hurt people too often to remain popular. On the other hand, being completely driven by the current state can make a person take big decisions based on short-term problems. It might lead to depression, sadness, loneliness and what not.

A balance between both the characteristics of the person is the solution to these problems. I personally don't have any solution for them. I'd rather classify myself as too emotion driven. I lose control due to this, sometimes. I am still trying to overcome it. Its something like a war in my mind. And the enemy is also me. God save me!

Ciao. 

What do you need eyes for?

"If you loved me, you wouldn't care about my looks."

"Looks don't matter, what matters is the heart of the person."

"So, if I stop looking good, you'll stop loving me?"

On one side are words like these spoken by one set of people, and on the other are people who describe beautiful things. I don't know many sentences in support of the other set, but well, all that Windows XP boasts about is an all new LOOK. Everyone who is a little tech-savvy knows that its just Windows 2000 beneath. All this business of modelling, movies, media is about good looks. And then, the other side defends saying, "Dikhawo pe na jao, apni akal lagao".

But, if we think again, is everything which is beautiful, fake? Is there nothing like a real beauty? Can every human being be so purely in love that the looks wont matter at all? And those who think that one of the conditions to love something or someone is that they should look good donot 'actually' love it/him/her. Well, I don't support such a thought.

As far as I know, more than 50% of the brain processing is done for the vision system. Why? Just because god thought it'd be great to do so? Or maybe visual data is too much or something? A more convincing answer is that visual perception is the most effective way of getting information. Even imagining or understanding is a synonym of 'visualizing'. And still people think that visual appearance is not the way to like or love people.

One of the reasons people give about not judging people by looks is that looks aren't in control of the person. But then, thats just the bone structure, height and tissues, complexion. There are a lot of other things that make up looks. The hair, a clean face, the clothing, the freshness, etc, etc. All these are very much under human control. And with plastic surgery and dental science, even the facial structure.

The other reason people give is that when we love someone, we love the person and not his appearance. But then what are the ways you can communicate or get in touch with a person? Touch, voice and vision. People keep saying about its important how someone touches you, or talks to you. Why not how someone looks to you, or looks at you? Gestures which are just 'visible' also form a great amount of interaction between persons. For example, the traffic policeman does gestures with his arms to signal things to you.

If something looks good, like a car or a computer, it can become the only reason why you end up buying it. Are persons less important than these products that we donot use the visual information while judging people? I strongly support the notion that looks do matter and are a very very big factor in human interaction.

And we have very good examples too. What do we see when we are looking in a matrimonial site? Don't we first see the photo than seeing the other details? All the community search engines provide a button "look for profiles with photos only", why?

If someone changes the way he/she talks, and begins being rude, we could stop interaction with the person. If someone touches you harshly and hurts you, you might get annoyed with that person. But if the same person dresses shabbily in front of you, or stops looking good, it is assumed that we wont change our attitude. Why? There is no reason why a person, be it a husband/wife or a boyfriend/girlfriend or even a father/son should like the other person in the same way as he/she looked before. Just like the way a person talks to you 'everytime' matters, the way a person touches you 'everytime' matters, the way people look to you 'everytime' should and does matter too.

My first salary

It has been a nice week althrough and supposedly going to be a great weekend too. I've got my 'mid term presentation' tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM. Some professors from IIT Delhi are going to witness it. I am kind of nervous too, though my ppt is almost complete. We're going out to see 'Fanaa' as a monthly outing of the company. We'll be leaving shortly for the movie.

At about 1:30 PM, there was a loud noise in this building and the power supply unit stopped functioning. I hadn't completed my ppt and was least expecting a powercut. The HR manager asked us to go 'off' as in, leave for the day. I was happy and sad both. We were just leaving when she called 'bacchon.. idhar aao…', as if asking some kids to take away some chocolates. And then with a mild smile she told us that we are going to get our salary. My first formal salary in a 'real' company. Wow! I wasn't that thrilled, but then I signed the document and held the check of 8000 INR. I called up mom and dad, and dad congratulated me. Then I called up Tanu too and shared the good news. It feels great to have earned my first ever pieces of currency. Thank you god for letting me live and feel this day. Nikhil also got his salary along with others.

Three cheers for us. Hip hip hurray! Hip hip hurray! Hip hip hurray ;) 

I am preparing for the presentation, and will be leaving for the movie in a couple of hours. You have a nice evening and also the weekend to follow. Wish me luck. Ciao.