Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Where are you from?

Many times we ask this question when we meet new people: where are you from? Many times we are asked: where are we from? This is very casually asked as part of the introduction. Yet, the answer to this question is not so simple - it is a very context sensitive answer. We give different answers depening on the location where the question was asked; who is the person asking the question etc.

The answer to this question can be very wide - from a very big geographical region to a small locality of a town or a village (coarse grained vs finer grained as a Computer Science guy would say). At the highest level of granularity, I can think of  a diplomat negotiating in North-South dialogue who can answer the question saying that he is from Northern Hemisphere or some other diplomat replying that he is from Southern hemisphere. At next lower level, one may mention the name of the continent, saying she is from Asia, or Europe etc. But these are rare occasions. For most practical purpose, the highest level of answer is the name of the country. When I am traveling outside of India and someone asks me the question, my simple answer is: I am from India. There is no confusion in higher level of answers. (When traveling outside of India, if some other Indian asks me the question, my answer will be different.)

There is usually a follow-up question: where do you live? It carries a straight answer. People usually reply it with the city or village where they currently live.

The lower you go in the level trying to answer the original question (where are you from?), the more is the complexity of the answer. Most of the people, whom I asked this question, do not consider the place where they work as their place. Many of them have been living in Bangalore for more than a decade and have their own homes here. Yet, all of them mention the place where they spent their childhood days as their own place. The sense of belonging (আপোনত্ব, अपनापन) to the place where they have been working for many years is missing. The emotion is all attached with the place where we all spent our childhood days. That is the place from where we are; not the current place of residence.

First example is my father. He came to Morigaon in 1972 when the Sub-Division was created. Morigaon later became a distict. Deuta (father in Assamese) spent most of his work life in Morigaon. He built his house there. He retired from his job in Morigaon. He has been living in Morigaon for almost 40 years. But ask him where is he from. He will tell you that he is from Hatisung in Nagaon district, the village where he was born and spent his childhood days! I was born in Morigaon and spent the first 15 years of my life there. I am out of Morigaon for last almost two decades. I live in Bangalore now and  own an apartment here. I have spent six years in this city. Ask me where I am from. My answer is: I am from Assam. If someone from Assam is asking me this question, I'll tell him that I am from Morigaon. If I meet someone from Morigaon, then I'll tell him the name of my locality in Morigaon.

Ask my son Ekagra where is he from in a few years. I am sure he will reply he is from Bangalore.

The most interesting answer to this question came from one of my colleagues. His father works in the armed forces. The armed force personnels work in different places of the country and keep moving from one place to another within a few years. So my colleague spent his childhood days all across the country. His father's native place is in Orissa; but my colleague never lived in Orissa. He later pursued his engineering in southern state of Kerala. Now he works in Bangalore. He told me: he needs five minutes time in answering the question where he is from. But he said it will be easier to answer the question when he goes outside of India. He can simply say then: "I am from India".

Look at Facebook profile of any of your friends. It has two fields: Lives in for current place of residence and from  for that sweet place where your spent your childhood days. Of course, there are some people for whom both the fields are same.

So where are you from? :-)

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Biswakarma Puja

Biswakarma (as pronounced in Eastern part of India - Assam, West Bengal and Orissa) or Vishwakarma (as pronounced in rest of India) is the only engineering god from about 330 million Hindu gods. Vishwa means the universe and Karma means work. Vishwakarma is considered as the architect of the universe. In Assam, West Bengal and Orissa, 17th of September (the Sankranti - last day of Bhada month) is celebrated as Biswakarma puja. People owning cars, motor bikes, factories, government engineering departments like PWD, END, Irrigation etc celebrate this puja.  I remember people owning bicycle and cycle-rickshraws too put garlands around their cycles on this day.

In my childhood days, we didn't have a car or bike or scooter. We owned three bicycles - used by my father, my brother and me. I think we also put some garlands in our bicycles. Deuta (father in Assamese) used to get invited by PWD and END departments for the Vishwakarma puja. Sometime my brother and I would accompany him to these offices in the afternoon. The evening used to be reserved for the big celebrations at Naba Bordoloi khura (uncle)'s residence. Bordoloi khura  was a lecturer of English in Morigaon college and was our neighbour. He was relatively wealthy in our neighbourhood and was the only person who owned an Ambassador car and one Bajaj scooter. (He was also the first person owning a color TV and a telephone connecttion). Bordoloi khura would invite all the families in our neighbourhood for evening snacks at his residence on the day of Vishwakarma puja. It was more like a dinner - prasad, luchi, bhaji, sweets etc.

Although we didn't celebrate Vishwakarma puja at our home, I always waited for the arrival of this festival with much excitement. Can you guess why? No, it is not because of the attraction of attending it in PWD office or at Bordoloi khura's home. But because Biswakarma puja heralded the onset of the festive season that would continue till January. In my small town of Morigaon, vendors would start selling balloons from Vishwakarma puja. In a few days from this, there will be Durga puja and Kati bihu in October. Then there will be Deepavali, Kali Puja, Christmas and New Year in November and December. In January, there would be Magh Bihu and then Na-khuwa (occasion to celebrate the first rice of the season..will write a blog on this sometime).

There was one more reason I liked Vishwakarma puja. It also brings the autumn season (sarat and hemanta ) - used to be my most favorite season. Rains would stop by then. End of summer and onset of winter. The night sky would be amazingly clear with full of stars.

4 years in Synopsys

I completed 4 years in the same job today. I joined Synopsys in September, 2007 and has been working there since then. My previous best was 2 year 10 months at Cadence - from December 2004 to September 2007. In the period before joining Cadence, I worked in three different companies in three years! So considering my previous work history, 4 years in a single company is definitely a record. :-)

Well, I like my current job and hope to play a long innings here.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Gonna be a father again

Let me break the news..we are expecting our second child. We are very happy and excited about it. We hope we are blessed with a baby girl this time. (In India, it is illegal to know the sex of the baby before he or she is born.) But then it is something which is not in our control. So we will be happy with a girl or a boy. It's just that our first child is a boy, we would love to get a girl.

The EDD is on December 10th. That is the end of 40th week. The baby may be born any time around 38th week, which is last week of November or initial days in December. Our son Ekagra too was born in December.

Parenthood brings lots of joy. Of course, it has its challenges too. But the happiness part of it far outweighs the difficulties.

I'm waiting eagerly for the arrival of the new one.