Purpose of learning history

Why do we read history in school? What is the advantage of learning our past? What benefit do we get by learning what our forefathers did many hundred centuries back?

I feel the purpose of learning history is about knowing our base, knowing our roots. Another purpose of learning history is to learn from experience and not to commit the same mistakes someone did some years back.

But interestingly, history involves some politics too. History is written in such a way so as not to cause displeasure to the rulers. Sometime same history is written and told in different way to two different audiences.  (I know the same history is presented in different way in India and Pakistan!)

History usually tells us about lots of bad things also that happened in past - wars, massacres, loot, exploitation, rape etc. Many hundred years back, people were not so civilized. There were blood-thirsty kings who always wanted to expand their kingdoms. Some people were aggressors and some people were victims. In twenty first century when we read bloody history that my ancestors were attacked by their ancestors, should we seek revenge for those misdeeds committed many hundred years back and attack their descendant now? If we follow the principle of revenge, then India should now attack England because the English men came here in 1601 to do business but then colonized and looted my country for three hundred years. Or, whole of Asia should attack Mongolia because Genghis Khan created lot of terrors here. No normal person would ever think to do these. We can't undo what has happened in history. We shouldn't try to take revenge for something that happened in past. What has happened in history has happened. We should learn from it rather than seeking to undo events in history.

But the most important question is: should we seek judicial intervention now for some of the misdeeds of history? Will the judiciary be able to resolve it? I wonder!

Cable Black Out! Thanks

Yesterday I spent a relaxed evening at home after so many months (or years).  Some good music was being played in our our music system. The idiot box was completely shut off. I was pleasantly surprised thinking that it was something by choice. There were no cartoon shows, no boring soap operas.

It later turned out that the pleasant evening was not by choice; but by compulsion. There was some problem in the cable connection of our apartment complex. There was no signal coming in our cable connection since morning till late into the night.

These days I feel irritated at the  sound of the idiot box.  The same boring programs - cartoon shows or soap operas - the same story keep repeating. So, thanks to the cable guys, I had a pleasant evening.

Almost missed the flight

Last Saturday I was traveling from Guwahati to Bangalore with SpiceJet flight number SG-529. The flight departs Guwahati at 2:35 PM. My hometown Morigaon is about 100km from the airport. One of our friends, who lives in Guwahati, invited us for lunch at their place on way to the airport. We planned to leave Morigaon at 8AM; but we were delayed and finally left home at 9AM. We reached my friends' apartment in Guwahati at around 11:15AM. They prepared a delicious lunch. We left his residence at 12:30PM. By the time we reached Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport, it was 1:30PM.  I knew we were a bit late. But I didn't know that we were so late that I was about to miss the flight!

We got the boarding pass quickly, in about 10 minutes time. We were in the queue for security check by 1:45PM. There was separate queue for ladies and G went through the queue quickly. But the security check queue for men was too long. There were only two gates for security check for men. I found that six flights depart between 2:30PM and 3:30PM. I was in the queue till 2:10 PM and  sure to miss the flight. I heard my son crying from the other side by calling me. I tried to call my wife; but there was no network coverage. I wanted to tell her that all of us shouldn't miss the flight. At least they should fly to Bangalore. Finally I got her on the cell; but she refused to fly without me.

At around 2:20PM, I cleared the security check. There were seven more persons besides us. Finally we boarded the flight.

There is a new circular issued by some of the airlines in India that check-in counters will close 45 minutes before departure in six metros and boarding gates will close 25 minutes before departure. In other cities, check-in counters will close 30 minutes before departure and boarding will close 15 minutes departure. This assumes that we can clear the security check in 10 or 15 minutes time. That's impossible. Security check is the real bottleneck and as in my case last Saturday, it may take more than 30 minutes.

What I've learned from my experience? It's important that we reach the airport two hours before departure even when we're traveling on a domestic flight. Else, we may end up missing the flight.

PMGSY: catalyst for changing the rural landcape

I'm just back from Assam after a one week long vacation there. Usually we go to Assam once every year and we take two weeks off. But this time we were there for a shorter time. When we go there, we visit our relatives from both my side and my wife's side. Most of our relatives are in Nagaon district. Nagaon is a central district in the southern bank of the Brahmaputra.

I drove a lot during the vacation. I observed three things about the roads in Nagaon district. I hope it's the same in almost every part of Assam. The national highway (NH-37) is in a bad shape because of the four-lane NHAI project. This project has been going on for quite a long time. I'm not sure how many years it'll take for the completion of the four-lane highway. Secondly, state roads (maintained by state PWD department) are in pathetic conditions. The road connecting my native town Morigaon to the nearby town Nagaon is one of the worst road I've ever seen. The condition of that road has been deteriorating every year. Either the local politicians are not interested or the state government has no money for development of the roads.

Contrary to the gloomy condition of the national highways and state roads, the village roads present a completely different picture. Thanks to the central government scheme called Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (means Prime Minister's Village Road Plan),  all the village roads have been developed in recent years in Nagaon and Morigaon districts and hopefully in rest of Assam also.  The remotest villages have all been connected through good roads under this scheme. There is not much traffic on these roads. These roads have started a new market for vehicles like Tata Winger, Tata Magic etc. These vehicles carry around 10 or 15 people and ply on these roads. Now it's a lot easier for people to travel through these villages.

I used these roads built under PMGSY scheme to drive to many of the villages where our relatives live. Taking these roads reduces the distance otherwise I had to take using highways.

I was curious to know who will maintain these roads. Construction of these roads will be meaningless if these are not maintained properly. I heard that there is a 5 year maintenance period for these roads. The contractor whoever builds these village roads need to keep aside 25% of the fund for maintenance of the road for the next 5 years. I hope this money is used in actually maintaining the roads and don't end up in the pockets of the officials.

Roads are very important for economic development. Most of India still lives in villages. Till a few years back, road connectivity in these villages were a big problem. I hope the PMGSY roads will bring in new prosperity and socio-economic development to our villages.

Me and my multi-way (m-way) stories

Recently there is an ad campaign, titled Me and Meri Maggi, going on for Maggi Noodles. This has inspired this post. I wanted to write some of my encounters with multi-way, (I sometime call them m-way), people.

Circa-2003, Place: My residence at RT Nagar, Bangalore

I was a bachelor at that time and shared the house with my brother and another friend of mine. I enjoyed sleeping till late into the morning on weekends. At around 6:30AM, someone knocked at my door. I was obviously annoyed at this unwelcome intrusion and wanted to shout at whoever was on the door. I opened the door and there was one of my friends standing at my door with one more person. I welcomed them to my small living room.

Let me tell you some background. My friend who has just come has been calling me for last couple of weeks to discuss some business plan. He called me on many weekends to attend a meeting to discuss their business plans which will be attended my many like-minded people. I asked him what is the business; he won't reveal me the type of the business...

Now I come from the wash-room and give them two glasses of water. The other person accompanying my friend asked me what is my future plan. He warned me that there were going to be much expenses in life and income from my job was not sufficient enough. So I should do some business. I was actually forewarned by a few other friends about this multi-way business. I could strongly and politely refuse them.

Circa-2004, somewhere in Sadashiva Nagar, Bangalore
Whenever I spoke to this friend of mine, he told me he had some business plan. I respected him (and still respect him). He was a brilliant guy who passed out from my college and was my senior. He earned a lot and possibly the highest paid guy amongst our contemporaries at that time. I thought he wanted to do some start-up. So I was interested. I asked him what was his business plan; but he won't tell me directly his business plan. After many conversations, I started getting a doubt that the style of discussion was going in the same way as my first story. I wondered how much money does one need. Here's the possibly best paid guy from my college and he is into this multi-way thing..



Circa 2003, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore
My younger brother was admitted into the hospital. While settling the bills, I had some interaction with a guy who handled medical insurance. We  exchanged our business cards. This guy later really pissed me off. He kept calling me for almost every alternate day for multiple weeks to attend some meeting to discuss some business plan. I had to be really rude with this guy.

May 2006, The Great Mall, Milpitas, California

I went to the Great Mall with my bhabhi. While shopping there, I came across an Indian family - husband, wife and a kid. They asked me what did I do and if I were shopping for my wife. The guy told me that he ran his own business. On hearing that, my bhabhi suddenly  pulled me away from them. I was a bit surprised as to what happened. Bhabhi tod me that these friendly-looking families are those multi-way people. Two of my friends who were also there in the mall kept talking to them. The family took the hotel phone numbers of my friend and reached our hotel in the evening with a box. Yes, their business plan start with a box. :-)

Feb-March 2008, Castro Street, Mountain View, California

My friend was enjoying a walk in  Castro street with his newly married wife. They met a very friendly Indian family and exchanged pleasantries. The next day this friendly-family reached my friends' apartment with the business inside a box. I kinda warned them the scenario. They politely avoided them.

October 2008, on a vacation in Assam

I got a call from Bangalore at my cell phone. The caller introduced himself as a friend of one of my friends, who I knew were already doing the multi-way business. The caller told me that he has some business plan and wanted to discuss with me. I asked him straightforward if he was a multi-way guy. He said he was. I politely refused. Told him that my work demanded long hours. Whatever little time is left after work, that is exclusively for my family. That's all..

2009, the Bay, RMZ Infinity, Bangalore

A stranger started talking to my friend (the same guy in Castro) saying that my friend's shoes were very good. He kept on the conversation that led to a business plan. But my friend was already experienced by now. He quickly found that this stranger was none other than multi-way guy..

Today (15th July 2010), Bangalore

My wife got a call. The voice was very familiar to my wife. The same lady called my wife last week also to sell some product. The lady on the phone introduced herself by some other name. Today my wife actually identified who was the caller.  She wanted to sell some international standards multi-way facial product. My wife knew the caller was actually a friend of her, but pretending to be some business-woman. My wife refused her strongly.

Do you have any multi-way (m-way) moments. Wanna share these with me here?

No cashless makes me penniless; what about you?

These days I've a nightmare: will I or any of my family members fall sick that requires hospitalization? I pray that neither of my family nor any of my friends' family fall sick during these days. All the major health insurance players have removed many of the top (?) hospitals from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore for cashless transaction. That means, if we get admitted to these hospitals, we've to pay from our pocket and then apply for reimbursements. If we apply for reimbursements, then we're at the mercy of the insurance company. They will invoke some clauses of the policy to partially reject your claim.

Perhaps the intention of the insurance agencies is good. I read that 10% of the hospitals in these cities account for 80%-90% of the claims! Hospitals inflate the bills of the insured patients. There are different categories of rooms in hospitals. Usually the maximum room charge per day is 1% of the sum insured. If you've a mediclaim policy of Rs 3 lakh, then the insurance will pay you only Rs 3000/- per day for the room. If the room charge is Rs 3700, you've to pay Rs 700 extra. But that's only half the story. In all the hospitals, every other charge is proportionate to the room charge. If the doctor charge is Rs 300/- in a general ward, you may to shell out around Rs 1000/- for the same doctor if you're in a room. Similarly, if the some surgery cost is Rs 10,000/- for a patient from a general ward, you may have to pay Rs 30,000/- for the same surgery if you're a patient from a room! I don't understand the rationale behind this at all. How come the same surgery be so costly if you stay in a room whereas the same doctor, same staffs and the same operation theater (OT)  will be used? Suppose your maximum room limit is Rs 3000/- but you stay in a room of Rs 3700/-, then the insurance companies will apply pro-rata calculation on all of your hospital expenses on that ratio. Although your sum insured is enough to cover your total medical bill, you still have to pay from your pocket as your other expenses will be capped as per the maximum room-charge eligibility.

The insurance agencies have defined a Preferred Provider Network (PPN) and defined packaged rates for commonly occurring deseases. The hospitals have been asked to comply with that. The insurance houses want to rein in on the soaring mediclaim expenses. It seems in the long run, we as consumers will benefit. But as the tussle between the insurance agencies and the hospitals are going on, guess who has to bear the brunt? It's us - the policy-holders, the patients. So let's pray that all of us remain healthy till  the clouds of uncertainties over hospitalization are over. Otherwise, no-cashless-hospitalization will leave many of us penniless.

More links:

1. Accept our rates to get cashless plan: Insurers to hospitals, the Times of India, 15th July, 2010.
2. Medical insurance cos shortchange policy-holders seeking reimbursement, the Times of India, 15th July, 2010.

How many birthdays do you have? I have two!

I come from a small town - Morigaon. I went to government school and studied in Assamese medium till class-X. There was no play-school and pre-school those days in Morigaon and I went to class-I directly at the age of 5 year and half. There was no convent or any other English medium school there. Students from poor families to upper and lower middle class families in and around that town came to study in that school.

Usually kids of some poor people from villages start school late. Then some students fail in annual exams. So students of various age groups study in a same class.

Then at our time there was no birth-certificate in Assam. The class-X certificate from school-board was considered as the birth certificate.

So when we filled up the forms for class-X exams, our teachers told us not to fill the birth-day column. I didn’t understand its implication at that time. Later I found out that the teachers normalized some dates for all students! Our class X exams took place in the month of March. So all students' birthdays were distributed from about first week of Feb to first week of March.  That’s the story of I having two birthdays. The real one is in August and the official one is February.

Another consequence of these two birthday phenomenon: people used to retire from government services in the month of February and March.  My father retired in the month of February. My mother too will retire in the month of February. So is my uncle.


Things have changed a lot now. My native town Morigaon has changed since then. Birth certificates are compulsory in India now. So I guess people won't have the luxury of celebrating birthday two times in a year nowadays. :-)

I get two sets birthday wishes every year. From all my official contacts, I receive birthday wishes in February. Again in the month of August, I get birthday wishes from personal contacts. Well, it's not bad to receive people's good wishes twice in a year. :-)

It's my life! Really?

I've just listened to the song It's My life by John Bon Jovi after a long time, perhaps after a few years. This song was one of our favorite songs during our college days. I still love this song. Only difference between now and ten years back is that I can't feel oneness with the song that I used to feel in 2000. It's not just my life now in 2010!

Ten  years back, I was a student at IIT Kanpur earning Rs 5000.00 a month from the government as scholarship. There was zero liability on my head, no income tax to be paid, no EMI to be given, no credit card bill to be missed, no frustration at not getting salary hikes, no late night calls to attend, no worry over sensex going down, no rat race at all. I was really free (free as in freedom) then to enjoy my life my way.

Yes, Indian is my caste too!

One social evil that I've hated since I first came to know about it in my childhood is the caste system in Hinduism. There are many good things in Hinduism and I'm proud about that. But caste system is one thing which I can never agree to. It's disgusting; it's very inhuman; undemocratic. I see traces of racism in caste system.

Fortunately I was born in Assam where caste system is much less prevalent compared to other regions of India. There was a great social reformer in Assam circa fifteen hundred century named Sankardeva. There is no politics or politician in Assam based on caste. Assamese surnames are not based on caste. My surname Saikia can be written by people from different castes. But Assamese society is still not a completely casteless societies. Villages were named after castes. For example, hira-gaon (village of the caste hira), kalita-gaon (village of kalita caste), koch gaon (village of koch caste) etc. In rural areas, people from upper-caste-Assamese-Hindu won't eat at the same table with people from lower castes. Inter-caste marriages take place in Assam; but across some castes; not all.

Caste system is much more prevalent in rest of India. There are political parties whose main vote plank is castes. Inter-caste  marriage is a very rare phenomenon.

I wonder why caste system was not abolished during the social reforms that took place during the 18th and 19th centuries in India. We could abolish other social evils like untouchability, sati, and aversion to widow-marriage etc. I don't know if there was any social revolution against caste system in our history.


I thought gradually caste system will go away from India. With education and contact with the rest of the world, I thought Indians will realize how inhuman is this caste-system. I would love to see a society where there is no caste. I wish the government enacted a law banning the caste system. But I don't see that happening. One recent phenomenon has demonstrated that instead of  discarding the evil, we are moving towards it! In the latest census currently undergoing across the country, people will be asked to mention their castes.


I have always rebelled against the caste-system. I won't teach about the caste system to my next generation. I know there are many like-minded people in our society now who abhors caste-system. I'm very inspired to know that Amitabh Bacchan in his blog has written that he would write his caste as INDIAN in the census. Let's us all record our castes as Indians.


References

1. Interrogating the caste census, K. Subrahmanyam , Indian Express
2. Reviving the caste system, Kuldeep Nayar, The Dawn
3. Untouchable, National Geographic
4. Rediff's campaign against caste in census

36 years of parents' wedding

Today is the 36th wedding anniversary of my parents. On 13th May 1974, my parents tied the nuptial bond. It was of course an arranged marriage. One of my father's sisters (পেহী) was married in the village Dumdumia-Balisatra. That is my mother's village too. Then my mother's elder sister (জেঠাই) was married to the neighbouring village of my father's village Hatisung-Kujidahn. I think the the proposal for my parents wedding would have come from one of these two links. (I'm not sure. I'd ask them today.)  My father was the eldest of six siblings whereas my mother was the youngest of 12 siblings. There was a 10+ years gap between two of them. Did they meet alone to get to know each other? No, they didn't even talk to each others before marriage! My father's eldest sister (ডাঙৰ পেহী), who expired a few years back, and his youngest brother (বোপা খুৰা) met my mom before the marriage. And the marriage was finalized!  Very unthinkable if you fast forward the clock by 36 years; isn't it?

One success mantra behind their happy married life: I have never seen them fighting like many other couples. Whenever my father was angry, my mother was calm. Whenever my mother was angry for some thing (it was very very rare), my father kept quite. That way a fight never broke out between them.

My father is retired. My mother is working and will retire in 2015. They live in my native town Morigaon. Unfortunately, I am not with them on this day today. Just wanted to tell them: Deuta-ma, you've been the best parents of the world. I don't believe in gods that exist in temples. I see manifestation of gods in you. Love you.


I hope to celebrate the 40th wedding anniversary of my parents in 2014. (Last anniversary that we all celebrated was the silver jubilee year in 1999.)

বাংগালোৰত ৰঙালী বিহু

যোৱাকালি বাংগালোৰত ৰঙালী বিহু উদৃযাপন কৰা হৈছিল ৷ আমি অনুষ্ঠানটিলৈ গৈছিলো ৷ আমাৰ খুবেই ভাল লাগিল ৷ পুৰণি বন্ধু কেইবাজনকো লগ পালো ৷ নতুন কিছুমান চিনাকি হলো ৷ খোৱা-বোৱা বঢ়িয়া আছিল ৷ মুঠতে ভাল লাগিল ৷

অসমীয়াত ব্লগ

অসমীয়াত ব্লগ! প্রথম চেষ্টা (Testing if I can blog in Assamese)

Where to post?

I go back 10 years in time using a time machine. I meet someone on the street and ask him: I wanted to post something. But I don't know where to post it? He replies, "There is a post office drop box just across the street. But if you want to send it by Speed Post or Registered Post, then go straight on the main road and in about half kilometer you'll get the Post Office." Cool. I said thanks to him.

Now I come back to the present time. I ask my friend the same question where to post. He said if it's brief, I can post it in Twitter; if it's mid-size, then I can post it to my Wall at Facebook; else I can post it in my blog!

In ten years' time, the meaning of post is changing. And there're just too many places to post: Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Blogger etc etc. This morning I was wondering if there is any application by which I can say that blogger is my primary place to post and then create one pipe from it to every other secondary places like Facebook, Twitter etc. Then I came across Twitterfeed. I've just enabled it and connected it to Twitter and Facebook. If it works, then I don't have to post in multiples places.

The purpose of this post is to find out if the pipe created by Twitterfeed from my blog is working or not.

Down with supersitions! I'll celebrate my bihu

Last two weeks whenever I spoke to my relatives in Assam, they told me essentially not to celebrate rongali bihu this time. Well, they didn't tell me exactly that; but they told me not to buy new cloths for myself, not to give new cloths to anyone, not to prepare any food etc for bihu. I was a bit shocked and wanted to know the reason behind it. They told me that this is a molla month. I asked them what is that? Is it only in Assam or is it the case in whole of India or whole of this world. Most of them couldn't exactly define what they meant by molla month; but I collected two views from them:

1. There are two amavasya (i.e., new moon) in this month
2. There are five Saturdays.

Ok, let us believe that both the statements are true.  But why is the fear psychosis then? Are we living in the stone ages or in twenty first century? How two new moons happening in the same month will affect me? It's a natural celestial activity.

I heard that some news channels in Assam are responsible for creating this hysteria over molla month. 

I'm definitely going to buy some new cloths for me as mark of protest against this superstition. Are you also joining me?

From EDA to drug-discovery!

Some EDA veterans are using the skills they developed in EDA to simulate the behavior of therapeutics. Sounds cool; isn't it? The company is CellWorks Group. They are in stealth mode and their website doesn't reveal anything about what they are doing now.

CellWorks Group is founded by two of my ex-colleagues from Cadence - Pradeep Fernandes and Taher Abbasi. Pradeep was the Business Unit head of RTL Compiler (RC) synthesis and Taher was the Director for Field Operations for RC. Then CWG's India Managing Director is Anand Anandkumar who was Magma India's MD before joining CWG. Pradeep, Taher, Anand etc are all EDA veterans.

Anand's linked-in profile mentions CWG as an extremely exciting and hot startup  which is in the area of Pharma therapeutics, using a novel principle called Virtual Proteomics. This company has the opportunity to revolutionize how drugs (particularly combination therapies) will be designed and brought to market.

Pradeep's linked-in profile reveals this about CWG: CWG is creating a comprehensive library of disease platforms. These platforms enable the predictive analysis of drug-disease interaction in-silco. This predictive analysis enables safer and more potent drugs to be designed in a shorter time, by enabling fast-failing and fast-scaling methodologies.

CellWorks started an India R&D center in bangalore in 2007. This news reveals some more information about CWG:

1. CellWork Research India Limited (CRIL)’s research focus would be in the areas of oncology, inflammation, metabolic disorders, CNS and Skin.
2. Their research is based on Systems Biology approach.
3. It involves development of in silico platforms of disease physiology at the metabolic and bio-chemical pathway level
4. The in-silico approach enables drug discovery teams to use these platforms as a virtual experimental system.
5. The drug discovery teams would have the benefit of using the in silico system in conjunction with currently used in vitro and in vivo techniques.

Why am I so excited about this news? There are two reasons:

1. I'm happy to see the EDA knowledge being applied in Bio-Medical research. We actually do cool stuffs in EDA :-).
2. I always feel that mankind should have overcome killer deseases like cancer by now. But the reality is that we're still not able to prevent and cure cancer completely. I look for the day when there will be some vaccines against cancer. I hope efforts like CWG will bring us closer to that day when we shall overcome cancer.

Why do I blog?

Once a friend of mine asked me: why do I blog? Let me try to answer that question now.

First, life is a journey. We pass through different stages in life: early school days, college days, job life being a bachelor, marriage, kids etc etc. There are different moments  throughout these stages - some are special, some good or some bad - which constitute life. Then we move from one place to another for education, job or to see new places. We meet different people. Life is an interesting journey with all these. There is a related question: why do we take photographs of different moments? We want to capture different moments of our life. We want to capture time in pictures. But pictures capture only the outer side of a person. How did I look like when I was at school? I had a moustache in college. I was lean-and-thin before my marriage etc. I visited Agra and took a picture in front of the Taj Mahal. These are all the outer side of a person. But there is an inner side too of a person. The photographs don't capture it. The inner side consists of his mind, his thinking, his feelings etc.  I believe a blog can capture the inner side of a person during his journey called life.


Second reason for a blog is to learn from someone else's experiences. Nowadays we search the internet before buying any product: be it a dinner in a restaurant, a movie, a new place to visit, a hotel to stay, a school for your kid, a book to read, a new car to buy, even a medicine to buy etc etc. We can search it because there are people who share their experiences using these products. If I depend so much on other people to know their views, why shouldn't I also contribute to them by writing my experiences?

Third reason is introspection. How do I look back into my different frames of mind during different times? It's through my blog.

Fourth reason is a bit philosophical and related to the first one. What legacy will I leave when I leave this world someday? How people for whom I matter - my family, my good friends, will remember me? An actor will be remembered through his movies. A singer will be remembered through his songs. An author will be remembered through his books. I consider my blogs as my legacy.  My journey through life will be captured here.

PF Transfer Woes: Here is a Workaround

Transfer of Provident Fund from one Employee Provident Fund office to another is a real pain. It's a pain because there is no way to find out if at all the transfer took place involving substantial amount of our hard-earned money (sometimes the only savings that people like me resort to :-) ).

I relocated to Bangalore in September 2007 from Noida and filled up the PF transfer form on the first day of my joining. I wanted to check the status of my PF transfer in one year's time. But I found that the lady from finance department dealing with PF transfer had left the company and now it's handled by some outsourced party. I then contacted the outsourced agency. They had no records if and when the lady filed my PF transfer application. I met some of my friends who relocated from other cities to Bangalore three years back and they told me that their PF transfers were still due. I felt frustrated with the system like many others.

Then I thought that let me re-apply for PF transfer since I was not sure if at all my PF form was submitted. So I reapplied using the standard procedure through the finance department. It was after 1 and half year of my joining the new (was it still new?) company.

In three months' time from my second application, I received a letter from Noida EPF office. The letter was written in pure Hindi. First thing that I understood was that my transfer application was rejected. Then it had a table showing the various reasons for rejecting a PF transfer claim. The reason that they ticked for my case was that my PF of amount ............ was already transferred on so & so date to Bangalore EPF office! I was much relaxed to know that finally my PF was transferred and , damn, I knew the amount too.

So the workaround is to re-apply for PF transfer after a gap of some months or a year of submission of the first application.

Future of EDA

Recently I've read two interesting articles written on future of EDA industry. It's predicted that by 2017 semiconductor industry will grow to become a US$1 trillion industry. Currently it's about US$270 billion. It's predicted that EDA industry will reach US$10 billion market in next 10 years. Here is the full article titled Future challenges for the EDA industry: A business perspective http://www.edn.com/article/CA6711232.html. The author of the article is S.N. Pamanabhan who is a Senior VP of R&D Services at MindTree.

The second article that I read recently is titled EDA: Aging or Dying. It was published in EE Times 10/02/2010 and written by Mike Gianfagna, Vice President marketing at Atrenta Inc. It states that EDA is maturing, not dying.

EDA: Looking for new avenues?

In February 2010, there are five events that indicate that EDA industry has started looking beyond its core areas of EDA and IP. These events are listed below in some random order:

1. On 18th February at a panel discussion during EDA Consortium (EDAC)'s Annual CEO Forecast and Industry Vision event, all the CEOs agreed that there is a need to explore new market segments. At the same time, they cautioned that new segments require sustained effort and considerable patience. The related news from EE Times is here.
2. Synopsys, the largest EDA company, acquired virtual system prototyping technology provider Vast Systems Technology Corp on 2nd February. Here is the news from EE Times.
3. Synopsys signed a definitive agreement to buy electronic system-level (ESL) design software vendor Coware Inc on February 8th. Here is the EE Times news.
4. Mentor Graphics, the third largest EDA company, acquired the Virtual Garage software suite from Freescale Semiconductor Inc. to expand electrical design scope. Here is the news from EE Times.
5. Mentor Graphics, on 16th February, announced it has named Serge Leef, current general manager of the System Level Engineering division, as Vice President of New Ventures. His role will be to expand the company into markets adjacent to EDA. The related news from EE Times is here.

Looks like EDA is looking into embedded/system level design for new growth opportunities. EDA industry is almost stuck at a US$4 billion market for past several years.

Why am I so concerned about Time Management now?

Of late, I have started focusing a lot in managing my time efficiently. What is the reason for this? Well, primary reason is that I now have to spend one and half hours every day from my work hours in gym. Last October I got an injury at my left knee. (I'll write a post on that). I'm yet to gain full strength on my left leg after that. As per the advice of my Ortho doctor, I joined a gym to undergo a post-surgery rehabilitation program. I do my work-out from 11AM to 12noon every day. Then I take a shower. By the time I'm back to my work, it's 12:30PM. Well, it's lunch time then. I finish my lunch and come back to my cube. It's 1 PM. So two hours from my day is gone! Then my two year old son Krishu expects me at home by evening. On top of that, I have important projects at office. On a first look, it seems each of these jobs (office, gym, family) suck time off from the other. It's not so if I manage my time well. Hence I must manage my time so that I don't waste it. Remember that time is a commodity.

My biggest inspiration in my hope to manage time efficiently is someone who led multiple lives in a single life - a professor of Physics at Gauhati University, an Assamese author of repute who wrote many short stories and novels (he won Satitya Academy awards), a famous movie director (he won many Swarn Kamal & Rajat Kamal awards), editor of the famous Assamese magazine Prantik, editor of children magazine Sofura, Chairman of Indian Railway Service Commission etc etc. He is none other than Dr Bhabendra Nath Saikia. How could he achieve so much in a single life? I never had the opportunity to ask him that question. But I'm sure he was able to play so many roles at the same time because he could manage his time well.

For more on Bhaben Saikia, see the following two links:

• http://www.bhabensaikia.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhabendra_Nath_Saikia

If Dr Bhabendra Natha Saikia could manage his time to do so many things in a life, why can't I manage my time to do just three simple things - office, gym and family-time?

BTW, I have created a Time Journal for next three weeks. It's a simple excel-sheet with multiple tabs, one tab for a day, that logs my time for every 15 minutes from 8AM to 6PM on all working day. My sample Work Journal can be viewed here.

Time Management

Continuing with my post on Prof Randy Pausch, let me now write on his speech on Time Management that he delivered to University of Virgina. It was 850 capacity auditorium and it was full to its capacityon that day.

There are many talks, seminars, books etc on Time Management and I must confess - most of these are boring. But the one that Prof Randy Pausch delivered is just too good. It was a pragmatic lecture unlike the Last Lecture that he delivered to CMU. The speech was very special. We all can talk of time management. We all feel that we have just lot of time for us. But Randy had maximum three more months of his life left. Three months before he gave the speech, he was diagnosed with pancreatitis cancer. His doctor told him that he had 3 to 6 months of healthy living (euphemism for death in 3 to 6 months) ! This talk on Time Management is special because it was delivered by someone who really had a limited time in his hand.

The full speech is available at https://youtu.be/oTugjssqOT0. The power-point slides for this can be downloaded from University of Viginia's website here . I've just finished watching the video. I took some notes from this. Let me share these now below:

• Time is a commodity. Manage time the way you manage money
• Time is money. When we talk about household budget, we mean household money budget. Do we have a household time budget?
• Money can be earned any time in life; but time lost can never be re-gained.
• We just have too many things to do in life ; but time is limited.
• Better time management leads to happier and wonderful life.
• Fun: If you're not having fun at your work, why do it? Life is too short. Why not enjoy it?
• Goal is to maximize fun.
• A typical office worker wastes 2 hours a day. It's a universal thing that plague all of us.
• Being successful doesn't make you manage your time well; but managing your time well makes you successful.
• He said that he was not a smart person. There were smarter people around him. What he was good at was managing his time well. If you have to run with faster people around you, then you have to find ways to optimize what skills you do have.
• Doing things right way is more important than doing the right things adequately.
• Plan: Planning is very important. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Plan each day, each week and each semester.
• TODO list: break things down into small steps. Do the ugliest thing first.
• Multiple monitors at work helps. TODO list, email, calendar etc in separate monitors.
• Speaker-phone helps in saving your time.
• Telephone is time waster. Use it efficiently
• Learn to say NO.
• Know your Good or bad times: Find your creative time. Defend it ruthlessly, spend it alone. Find your dead time and schedule meetings, phone calls etc during it.
• Interruptions: Every interruption takes 4 to 5 minutes for recovery. We must reduce frequency and length of interruptions. New email alert is also an interruption. Turn it off.
• Time journals: Time a commodity. You better track where your time is going. Monitor yourself in 15 minute increments. Update every 1/2 hour throughout the day - not at the end of day.
• Work-Life Balance: You can become more efficient at work. So you can leave office at 5PM and spend time with family. Randy worked fewer hours after marriage and still he got his works done. In grad school, people who completed their PhDs fastest are those who are married and/or have kids.
• Procastination: It's the thief of time. Doing thing at the last minute is expensive. Stress comes in. Deadlines are important. Create fake deadline which is before the actual deadline and treat this as actual dead-line. Usually when he was procastinating, there was a deep psychological reason. We feel embarassed because we think we won't be able to do it. When you're procastinating, identify why you're not enthusiastic.
• Meetings: An average executive spend 40% or more time in meeting. There must be an agenda. A one minute minutes noting the decisions taken in the meeting...who is responsible for what by when?
• Email: Save all of it. If you want something done, only one recipient. If you really want something done, CC some powerful. If you don't get a response in 48 hours, most likely they'll never reply. So nagging is ok after 48 hours.
• Managing Time with bosses: Write things down. When is our next meeting? What's my goal by then? Remember bosses want results, not excuses.
• Important advice: Kill your TV. Exchange money for time at every opportunity when you've young children. Eat, sleep and exercise.
• Feedback loop: Ask in confidence what good or bad you are doing.
• Books: The One Minute Manager, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
• Action Items: Get a day-timer. Put your TODO list sorted in priority order. Do a time journal. Make a note in your day-timer to revisit this talk in 30days. Ask "What have I changed?"

This talk is highly recommended for any professional. I'm going to start with the action items immediately after this post.

Prof Randy Pausch

I came to know about Prof Randy Pausch a few months back. He was a professor of Computer Science department at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a pioneer of Virtual Reality, human -computer interaction researcher, co-founder of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center. He passed away in July 2008 after battling with pancreatitis cancer.
Prof Randy Pausch gave a lecture at CMU which made him a celebrity. CMU organizes a series of lectures titled the Last Lecture where a professor is hypothetically given the scenario that he would soon die and that was his last lecture. For Prof Randy, he was actually dying. He was diagnosed with pancreatitis cancer a few months back and he had just a couple of months left in his life. A normal human being would have been so depressed and mentally weak after coming to know that death is looming large on him. Randy was not a normal human being; he was an extra-ordinary person. His spirit was extra-ordinary.

Randy chose a topic titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams for that lecture at CMU. There are three parts in that speech:

1. How Randy could achieve his childhood dreams?
   
2. How he helped others (students) in achieving their childhood dreams
   
3. Lessons learned
   

Under the second part, I came to know about the Project Alice. It teaches young kids how to do computer programming through a 3D gaming interface. He said that kids would be playing a game; but learning computer programming at the same time. He said that his legacy would live in that project after he is gone from this world.

The complete video is available at the following site:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

At the end of the lecture, he said there are two head-fakes in the entire lecture:

1. There is nothing like achieving childhood dreams. He said that he believed in karma. If you live well, dreams would come to you automatically.
2. Secondly, he didn't give the lecture to the 500 people sitting in the CMU hall; but was actually giving the lecture for his three kids (6, 4 and 2 year old).

I have just finished watching that. I learned lot of good things about life from this lecture. There is a book also named The Last Lecture now on this lecture.

He gave another lecture at University of Virginia titled Time Management. This one is important for all of us. How do we manage our time correctly?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5784740380335567758#

I'll write about the Time Management lecture some other day. There are two more videos that I watched.

• On March 13th 2008, Prof Andy Pausch gave a testimony before US Congress http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iP7xr6ig-s
  
• Andy Pausch on Oprah Winfrey show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ya9BXClRw
  

May his soul rest in peace.

Changing old habits? Yes, it's possible

I used to believe that changing a habit, which is as old as I'm, is difficult, rather next to impossible. But recently I'm able to change one such old habit.

Right from my childhood days, I used to go to bed late in the night. I could never wake up early in the morning. In those days, my school started at 9:30AM or 10AM and we used to leave for school half an hour or one hour before that. Children in my neighbourhood would get up as early as 4 AM and then study for a few hours. (In Assam, the sun rises at 5AM in summer days.) I could never do that despite my parents often telling me the virtues of early risers (Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise). I would get up at 8 AM, and then leave for school at 9AM. I continued the same habits throughout my days as engineering student during my under-grad and grad school.

The same habit continued in my work life too. Usually I have late night meetings. Then I'll work into the night till 1 or 2 AM and get up late in the morning. Will come to office at 11 to 11:30AM. So every thing was late in the day. It was like a consistently late-running train that reaches every station late. I remember one of my friends telling me about the Guwahati-Trivandam train that sometime used to run 24 hours late and you never know if it was today's train and yesterday's train!


Very recently I've changed my style. Even Indian Railways too is changing. Nowadays Guwahati-Trivandam trains run in time. So why cannot I? :-) I have started going to bed early at around 11PM. Next morning I get up from bed at around 6:30AM to 7AM. Then I am in office by 8:15AM. I go back home at 6PM. I don't log-in from home in the evening. I've started liking this new time-table.

What is the catalyst for this change in my old habit? There are three catalysts

1. I have joined a gym. The gym is in my office-complex and I do my work-out from 11AM to 12:30PM there every day.
2. The second is a realisation that most of us, including me, tend to waste lot of time in office in reading mails, surfing net, coffee-table etc. If I utilize my time efficiently, then there is no extra pressure to work from home in the evening and I can spend the evening with my family.
3. I couldn't attain any of three characteristics - healthy, wealthy and wise - attributed to early risers. I am neither healthy nor wealthy nor wise. :-) By waking up early, if I can get at least two of these attributes, I'll be happy. :-)
   

It's too early to say that I'm successful in changing my old habit. It's just three weeks into this new habit. I hope I'll be able to stick to this new time-table.