They are matured.

I knew, someday it was to happen.
I had known it.
I knew, the impact will be deep.
I knew, it will be difficult.

But I got carried away.
I thought, I am being positive.
I was being a fool.
I was weak.

It is strange.
I lost but you didn't win.
You don't even know how bad I feel.
Am I being a fool again?
Probably, you know.

But, It's not you.
It is not your mistake.
Some people just can't think beyond self.
That's how they are.
They are 'matured'.
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....

It's not a poetry. I just wanted the post to look little long :)

That's what Konkana tells Farhan in 'Luck By Chance': "इसमें तुम्हारी कोई गलती नहीं है, कुछ लोग होते ही ऐसे हैं.."

Education.

For a note, after reading the talk by Hamming which I talked about in my older post , I am actually able to relate many of those things in my day to day life. It really makes sense. I hope, someday I will be at a stage to claim, "Hey, I owe it to Hamming!" :)

So, coming to the point which I am trying to talk about here:
"Moving from ignorance of an area to partial knowledge, and from that to a good grasp is something most people can do from either attending a class or self-study. But moving from understanding an area to really knowing it is more difficult"

That is a quote, I had read long back and probably I blessed my gtalk status also with it. No doubt about the correctness it has; I was just startled with the fact that its realization would have come to me many years ago if I had given a thought to my heart's voice a bit seriously in my school days. It is amazing to find someone else thinking on the same lines as you and it becomes really useful when it gives that extra stimulus to your mind to take that otherwise weak voice seriously.

Indian education system (yes, I dare to generalize) doesn't motivate 'really understanding' things. Students never understand that the exams are meant to test their understanding of subject (nor are test papers good enough to do that). They just concentrate on getting marks, revising the course hundred times and then spitting out all that knowledge on exam sheet. A month later, all the 'accumulated knowledge' is washed off. Its not so easy to really understand the things. Scoring high marks, getting rewards and recognition all look so tempting that the essence of education is sidelined. It is so disheartening.
True knowledge comes from questioning; the quality subdued in children in their early years by the society. They keep asking something, you will feel irritated and finally you will slap them and make them shut up. In India, how many times do we see parents respecting thoughts of kids?

Another thing to consider is: When you are writing a competition-exam with all that coaching and you don't qualify, you try again. Then you fail and you try again. Your parents and teachers keep motivating you (till the fourth attempt in which you clear the exam) saying "Never stop trying, you will win in the end". Haven't heard of any better shit. Of course, you will get it if you continue trying for it. But what next? Why don't you realize that your intellect in this field doesn't match with your counterparts? You won't get those many chances after joining the college. You shouldn't delude yourself.

Exams are meant to test all the basic knowledge required for the further studies you are opting for. You shouldn't aim to clear the exam but to 'really understand' that knowledge. There is no shortcut, no escape.

Haven't we encountered the cases wherein preparing for the final semester exams, shuffling through the books, all of a sudden, that thought strikes us and the entire course which looked useless throughout the semester starts making sense. But it doesn't happen all the time. People passout with all the recognition, rewards and everything but the knowledge.

And one fine day, when you are matured enough, you meet a person who hasn't got all those rewards and is not as well-recognized as you but makes you realize that he knows far more than you. You go into hibernation, think what went wrong and by the time you realize, its too late! Life is no longer same. You feel insulted with all those praises, you don't dare to take a snap with all your rewards. You curse yourself, you curse everyone for fooling you. You are broke!

I, desperately, feel the need of change in our education system. I want it to be focused on 'really understanding' the things and it should motivate the students for the same. Student should really be proud of his education in his whole life.
I can see the change coming but its very slow, very little. I wish to contribute towards it in later part of my life; got some other priorities at the moment.

Better Together..

Came across this beautiful song couple weeks back and liked it. Very sweetly sung and too romantic.
Written and Performed By : Jack Johnson.

There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard,
No song that I could sing
But I can try for your heart,
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things,
Like a shoebox of photographs,
With sepiatone loving,
Love is the answer
At least for most of the questions in my heart ,
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy,
And sometimes life can be deceiving,
I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together



For a good romantic story, check out 'THAT NIGHT' by Rahul Singh here.
" But it seems so nice to leave it at this juncture...when the seed is sown and the feeling is growing... whether the plant grows or not, whether they fall in love or not... whether they end up together or not... it’s all irrelevant... because the best phase of love, is when it’s just born in your heart. Truly it feels great"

And yes, Congrats Nazkani for IIM-B! I know, you are reading this. :-)

Things to know for researchers..

Around a week back, I had read the transcript of the talk 'You and Your Research' given by Richard Hamming (Hamming-distance/ Hamming-code fame). I found it interesting as he explained his points with some really good experiences of his life. Mostly aimed for people aspiring to be scientists, this talk can still be useful for the people from other fields. At least for me, it was really enlightening! Some of his views might still be debatable but a good insight to start with.

Some excerpts:
1. Luck favors the prepared mind.
For success, luck changes the odds, but there is some definite control on the part of the individual. You should be prepared for opportunities. Don't panic but welcome them. Push yourself and put all possible efforts for every opportunity.

2. You just need enough brains to invent.
You need not be very intelligent but you do need to have confidence in yourself and courage to pursue your ideas.

3. Scientists contribute more when they are young. The contribution reduces when they have received a Nobel Prize. Its because they no longer get to pursue the problems from scratch.
In Hamming's opinion, "The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards."
So, you should always continue to plant little acorns from which mighty oak trees grow.

4. Change faults to assets ALWAYS!
Major inventions have come out of some limitations. So, what you want isn't always the best for you.

5. Put that 10-20% extra effort for your work if you want to outperform others. It is like compound interest; the increase in productivity will be more than twice. You might have to neglect few things, do it. But be very sure about doing that hard-work sensibly. The steady application of effort with a little bit more work, 'intelligently applied' is what does the trick.

6. Be committed to your problem and always keep track of the unexplained misfits of theory.
Creativity comes out of subconscious. If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. So, Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem such that you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning free.

7. Always ask "What are the important problems in my field"?
If you want to do great work, you clearly must work on important problems, and you should have an idea; something a normal scientist forgets to realize in his routine work.

8. Keep the doors of your cube open.
It allows important ideas to flow towards you. You get to involve in the discussions about future developments and get the right directions.

9. Adapt yourself according to system.
Your primary goal is to invent. So, you should not waste your energy fighting the system.
You can either learn how to adapt the system to your desires or you can fight it steadily, as a small undeclared war, for the whole of your life. you pay a small steady price throughout the whole of your professional career. And this, over a whole lifetime, adds up to an enormous amount of needless trouble.

10. Don't get used to excessive reading.
Spend more time in thinking what you can do about something rather than reading about what others have done. Believe me, that study never ends. Before reading others' solutions, think and figure out your solutions.

11. Always have great people around.
You need to discuss the things with the critical mass who makes the discussion meaningful. Stay away from 'sound absorbers'.

12. Stay away from self-delusion and learn to put up with stress.
You should accept your drawbacks and at the same time, you have to put up with stress if you want to be a great scientist. You can lead a nice life; you can be a nice guy or you can be a great scientist.

13. Be clear about what you want.
When your vision of what you want to do is what you can do single-handedly, then you should pursue it. The day your vision, what you think needs to be done, is bigger than what you can do single-handedly, then you have to move towards management. If you want to be a great researcher, you won't make it being president of the company.

Well, these are few things which might summarize the talk but you will appreciate it more when you read the talk. By the way, this was a paper given for informal studies as part of one of the MS course in a US university. How I wish, in India, we would have understood education correctly!