Showing posts with label IIT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIT. Show all posts

A letter to my just born son...

Hi baby, 


This is the first time I am calling a boy - baby. Seems kinda weird to be very honest. I wrote a letter to both your akkas - Pranaya (read here) & Aainee (read here) when they were born. And I knew I had to write one for you. 


I am writing this as your mom is getting ready to bring you in the world - this process, which I have been witness to 2 times already scares me, and makes me respect your amma even more - but scares me for the most part, like if she can take that amount of pain, she can kick my butt if shit ever went down. 


We have been ready for a long time for you, son. When I was growing up, pretty early I knew I wanted a son - someone to share the life with, someone to teach all the guy things one a man learns over time - things about women, wine, beer, bread, work, purpose of life, did I mention women? I think all men start out wanting sons, I always thought daughters would be a lot of work (this part is not true) & you have to constantly look out for them (this part is true) - but the part that I didnt realize is how beautiful my life would get with two daughters.


A friend once asked what is the test of the fact that you are in love - I said if you happen to think about someone more than 17 times a day, you are in love! (Tune in to my daily gyaan sessions on youtube). I think about Pranaya & Aainee a lot more times than that every day. One day you will fall in love with a woman and feel love cant get deeper than that, wait till you have daughters - that love is something different. 


I am lucky to have such amazing women in my life - I am using the word "women" for Pranaya and Aainee coz thats what they are - you should see how they talk! Pranaya is a lot like me, it's like living my childhood again through her - in that sense, she is lucky too - to have a parent who completely understands how she's wired and understand the things that pain her or bring her joy. Aainee, we are still trying to figure out where her source code comes from! She is nothing like any of us, not like the parents, or grandparents or her sister - she is the spice in our very low sodium lives. 


Your sisters are flowers. There are times when I am looking at them paint, or make something with clay and they look at me, my heart skips a beat - it's different from how one falls in love with a woman, but still same same. Do you understand? See? How this letter has become about them?


The other day someone asked me what does it take to be a good father? <Start of gyaan sesh> I said two things  - Indulgence & sacrifice. Indulgence is getting to understand them, involve them in your world, get involved in theirs, be less grown up and more growing up - with them. Sacrifice is the easy bit, it is automatic and doesnt even feel like a sacrifice at the time. <End of gyaan sesh>





It is 6 am on a slightly chilly Dubai morning. You came into the world crying and punching arms to the background of "Eye of the Tiger" (in my head). 


I am writing this after you have arrived in our lives -  all pink (& for some reason angry, like an Irishman). I can't tell you how happy I am, son, that you are here - one very important reason is of course, now the attention of your amma & akkas will get diverted to your misdoings and I will be free to do as I like (or at least that's how it is in my head). Also, I didnt want one more girl come into my family and tell me how I do things wrong - the women lobby in the house is strong as it is (this is also why I call your akkas "women").


I was the first Chaudhary son in my generation and you are the first in yours. Men like us have a great responsibility. For years the Chaudhary name has stood for sacrifice, hard work, leadership & an inexplicable charm - all Chaudharys have it - both your akkas (esp the smaller one) have it. I have it (obviously), how else do you think I got your amma to marry me? You, my son, have a responsibility towards that name.


I am writing this now because when you are 14, I will be 50 & you might think I am not as cool as I used to be. Then you will turn 21 & realize I am cool again & it is amazing how I have changed in 7 years. Jokes apart, I am writing to tell you that I might not be always right about everything. My understanding of the world is mine, it is coloured by my experiences of the world. I might, in my good natured naivety, feel that something you want to do is wrong - be kind to me & remember that your father is also bound to errors.


The men from my father's generation were the last who got to be men. The men in my generation have had it slightly tougher (because no wet towels allowed on the bed), for your generation it might be even more. Some men have it easier than others, some are born into wealth others have influential parents, things that are not in your control and their is no sense feeling jealous about it or worrying about it. Kids born in the most expensive of hospitals, in temperature controlled delivery rooms cry when they are born & so do the ones who are born in poor neighbourhood in the heat & dust. The lives we are given always seem more difficult than they are. If you think something is not right, go ahead and make it right.


Then there will be times in life when it will seem that you made a choice, a bet that didnt pay off. In times like these you might doubt yourself - To that I tell you, forget what the world is telling you - what magazines tell you or what the newspaper tells you - these are just words on a paper - they dont mean anything till you give them meaning. Forget what your friends are telling you, they have seen only as much of life as you, they dont know more, or better.  


My advice to you son, for times like this is - Do whatever feels right to do. And do not what doesnt. 


This advice applies, not to everyone but a few - it is applicable to those men only who are made right by the creator, coder, if you like - and you are the very best he created. I know it, and if you ever doubt it, read this letter again - I hope it gives you confidence and helps you become an even better man.


I wish you all the happiness & joy. I wish for you a courageous heart & hope that you find love in this world. Love, courage, happiness & hope in your heart, my child, will lead you a long way. 


Lovingly, 


Daddy


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Letter to my unborn child...

Dear child,

You will be here in a few days and I feel completely unprepared. I was, what I like to call "baby ready" right out of engineering college. I had begun liking kids and couldnt wait to have my own. I waited 8 years for you to come in my life. And now that you are almost here, I feel completely unprepared.

I have no idea if I would make a good father. I was lucky to have a really great set of parents. They let me take my own decisions, let me make mistakes occasionally, form my own opinions, in short, they let me be, well, me. What else are good parents supposed to do if not this? There is no set Key Result Areas for parents. There are no finishing schools, no second chances (per kid). My parents I think did a good job. And still, there were times when I was really mad at them. Maybe it is a sign of growing up or something. Maybe there comes a time when you realise that for the halo our society creates around one's parents, they are after all human and they are susceptible to mistakes too.

I guess, this is the reason why I am writing to you even before you are born. I hope that when you read this at 13, this letter will be still written by your 29 year old father. And maybe he might be more understanding than your 42 year old father who has salt and pepper hair and who your girlfriends think looks like George Clooney.

I am also writing to apologise in advance. I am going to push my dreams onto your shoulder. No matter how good a father I try to be, I might sneak in a few words about IIT and how you should try and get into engineering and how MIT has the best labs and you should work there etc. I am telling you now - I will love you no matter what college you go to or what you decide to be in life.

Interesting people, I have found, do only two things - They either create something or solve problems. The really interesting ones do both. If you are doing this, you are doing life right. Your looks wont matter, what car you drive or where you live wont matter. It doesnt matter what your friends say, or your relatives or even what I say. Being happy matters. Being happy is an art and like every art form, it get better with practice.

Your mother and I love you very much. We already love you, even before you are born. We loved you even before you were conceived. You know what? I was 14 when I first met your mother. And she was just 13. It must be funny imagining you parents to be little, no? I remember saying to myself that she had the prettiest brown eyes I had ever seen. I also remember thinking that she would make a good mother. Amazing no? That the 14 year old me would feel that a 13 year old girl will make a good mother? But tell you what, in all the years that I have known her, my belief in her has only strengthened.

I wish I could insulate you from all that is wrong in this world. But I wont be able to do that. Come to think of it, maybe that is not a father's job. A father's job is to guide, I think, not cajole. If you find this to be incorrect, please let me know. There are going to be times in your life when you wouldnt know what you are doing with your life and where is your life going. Everybody will tell you to do what you love. But no one will tell you how to find what you love. I am sorry I cant tell you that either. Only you can find love, in work and otherwise. One trick that I have found is to listen to your heart more than your mind. Your mind is plagued with what they show on TV and what they write in the papers. Listen to what your elders say, including myself. But dont buy everything we say. Most 30 year olds I know dont know what the hell are they talking about. Extrapolate that to all other age groups. But do listen to elders and ask them questions. This is the only way to gain experience without experience.

We are people pleasers, your mom and I. There are very few who dont like me and I dont think any person in their right frame of mind would dislike your mom. Being likeable is not the same as people pleasing. Refrain from picking up that habit from your parents.

Make mistakes. It's very important.It's okay to fail at things. It is not okay however to not give your best. Think about it, if everyone halfassed everything what would the world be like?

Those who say luck doesnt matter are lying. But over time, I have found, luck evens out. Once luck evens out, only hard work stands tall. There is no substitute to hard work. At the same time, not everyone, no matter how hard working succeeds at everything. Faraday, found out the relationship between Electricity, Magnetism and light. One has to have some divine intervention to find that, I feel. But when Faraday was made to work in a glass manufacturing lab by his jealous boss, he failed miserably for 4 years! You might not succeed at everything. But succeeding at everything is not the aim of life.

Some of your friends are going to have better parents, maybe more educated or who earn more than us or they have better toys or have a good looking boyfriend/girlfriend. You dont know their story. You havent walked in their shoes. Dont be jealous. If you learn to do that, teach me how.

In closing, all I want for you if good health and a good life. Happiness and joy. Experiences and lots of trials and errors. Lots of love and an honest heart, my child, will lead you a long way.

Lovingly,
Daddy.



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The weight of the soul and sand....

I thought of this today. I think of so many amazxing things but since I have a job that takes up much of my time and creativity I don’t get to share the gems with you guys.



Everytime I get some brainwave, I want it to be like a story – you know start, middle and end – something that would enthrall you. But very recently, I have decided that I am going to share my half baked ideas with you and share the real gems with the guys who buy my books – the paying customers, you know! :P

I know what you be thinking – he writes once in abluemoon and acts like a turd, I am going to ctrl+w his shit. But wait – The wait has been worth it for this idea will change the way you look at life, well, not quite, but it’s a good idea, hold on –
So, you know how kids ask what happens when we die and what is a soul and what is its nature? I think I know.

I think every man has a soul – wait – let me scientify it. A soul is not a single entity. Think of it like a pouch of grey sand (found on the bank of Yamuna). There is say 100 gms of such sand dissolved in you. These 100gms is unique to you. Not everybody has 100gms and not everybody has the same shade of grey.
I already have a feeling I should stop here and share this with my paying customers, but anywho –

So, all living things have souls, right? That includes trees, and dogs and cockroaches, sure the cockroach might have only 3 gms of red coloured sand, but it has a soul alright.

Now as a rule, soul can neither be created nor be destroyed, it can be only moved from one living being to another. You know how they say at the beginning there was God – well, that might be true, he had a million gazillion gms of sand type soul which he later dispersed in living beings – also known as the big bang – into small bacteria like life forms, gazillion of them probably, each having 0.0001 gms of sand as the soul.

Oh, we have gotten the deep end of the pool. Let us go now to the much more enjoyable shallow end – How do babies get their soul and when?

I think as soon as the sperm and the egg mate, the baby gets a soul – a teeny tiny 0.001 gms of soul maybe, but a soul nevertheless. As it grows in the womb, the growth of the soul remains stagnant. Let me clarify at this point that just because something is growing doesn’t mean its soul is growing too, also the weightage of the soul isn’t directly proportional to its weight. For eg – an elephant might have less of a soul than a man or a dog for that matter. Also the soul grammage differs from elephant to elephant.

Once the baby is born, when it starts crying, it is for a few seconds just surviving on the 0.001 gms of soul that it had for the 9 months of its inception, its only when it gains awareness does it get its entire soul. For babies that are stillborn, there is only 0.001 gm of soul that nature has to recycle which I am assuming is easier. Sorry for being so morbid and insensitive at the same time, but bear with me.

When a human dies, their soul is no longer of use to them and is recycled by nature. It need not be immediately recycled though. The babies yet to be born in the particular humans’ family, I think, have first dib’s, to get a part of that soul. That is why, so many kids have the peculiar habits that their great grandparents had.

Some characterstics are pre-coded into your soul, just like some people have blue eyes, some have a dark soul, they don’t wanna help others, are jealous, cranky.. while others might be more helpful, polite, loyal…

Nature vs Nurture

I strongly believe Nature wins over nurture big time. The fact that most souls remain in a family getting passed from great grandpa/ma to great grandson/daughter, a bad souled grandpa would lead to a bad family. I might be over simplifying but what I basically wanna say is this – If the parents didn’t do a good job of nurturing a kid, maybe the kid wasn’t worth it. Do I hear the knives being drawn?

I have no way to justify it, but I think, a good kid would do well, irrespective of what the parents’ report card says. Also, I am saying that parents do less for the kids who they know aren’t good seed.

Hmm…Maybe is this is why I don’t publish half baked ideas. But this one has taken quite a bit of time to write and it would be a shame to hide it in my documents folder – So here I click the publish button – Swish!

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Physics is freaking awesome!

[Prologue: This post might be disturbing]

I woke up startled! "Physics is freaking awesome!" I said to myself.
Was it a dream?
I had slept on my physics text book. The page 152 of the book was wet from my drool. It was a lazy afternoon and I must have dozed off while studying. My back was sore. I guess I slept in an unnatural position. The human body wasnt made to sleep on a study table with your Physics text book as your pillow.

But IIT entrance exams make you subject your body to a lot of inhumane stuff - like sleeping at 1 in the night and getting up at 6 in the morning, solving whole calculus problems in your sleep, skipping lunch and sometimes dinner to stay awake... Last night I slept for 3 hours instead of the usual 5 hours. My IIT-JEE(mains) exams were round the corner. I had it all planned. Engineering from one of the IITs, then MBA from one of the IIMs, then job at an American investment bank, Mercedes at 28, BMW at 33, a terrace flat downtown at 35. Its funny how well we plan our life. I had everything planned for the next 20 years when I didnt know what was going to happen in the next 20 minutes!

It was mid-May. It was around 7 in the evening. I looked out of the window. It was golden brown outside. It was lovely! There were dark clouds in the sky and the May Sun beat down on them to create nature's own soft light bulb.

I looked at my drool drenched Physics text book. It wasnt fair. I was just 18. These are the greenest years of my life... and I was spending them reading books and learning formulae. This is so damn unfair. I have to get away from all this. I got up, took my bike keys and opened the door and slammed it shut.

I put in the key and started the bike. I realised I had forgotten to take the helmet with me. Damn it, I thought. I was going on a short ride, I dont need a helmet. I raised the accelerator, to kick the bike out of inertia

Page 109:
Inertia: Inertia is the resistance offered by a body when subjected to a change in its state of rest or of uniform motion.

Too much Physics does that to you. You start finding Physics in every damn thing.

It started to rain. Sparse but large golden droplets started to fall from the gold of the sky. It was like gold melting and falling down onto earth in small gold droplets.

I took the highway. I increased my speed. My hair were getting wet. The smell of wet soil was in the air. The water droplets hit my face, hurting it. Suddenly, I felt alive.

I see a truck trying to take a U turn, I apply the brake gently. A film of water formed on the tar road reduces the friction.

Page: 123
Friction: Friction is a force that resists the relative motion between two surfaces in contact.

I press the brake completely, but the bike wont stop. It skids on the wet frictionless road. I lose my balance. I fall on the wet tar road, the bike drags me along with it. It wont stop. It wont stop. Still no panic. The bike pulls me with it along the tar road, bringing me precariously close to the tyre of the truck.

The truck driver must have applied the brakes, but the momentum(mass x velocity) of the 50,000 kilogram truck kept it going.

Page: 146
Momentum: A measure of the motion of a body equal to the product of its mass and velocity.


It went going and going...till it came close to my head, till I could see the threads on the tyre, till I could smell the cow dung on the huge rubber tyre, and then...

Crunchhh...

What the ?? What happened to Newton's Third law of motion?!

Page 152
Newton's Third law of motion: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction!

If the truck exerted 50,000g (where g=9.8m/sec sq.) of force (Action), my head should exert that much force back (Reaction)! But that didnt happen now, did it? Newton was an idiot.. The third law of Newton sucks.. Just then it strikes me! Newtonian laws are applicable to perfectly rigid bodies. My skull isnt perfectly rigid... not even close! My brain lied splattered on the wet tar road. Broken pieces of skull stick to the tyre.

I thought to myself- Physics is freaking awesome!

[Note:It rained in Mumbai today] Physics is freaking awesome!SocialTwist Tell-a-Friend
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Taking it to heart...


Summer of 2001..
A R's classes..

Sitting in that class with all the happy faces around me, I couldnt help but wonder why I wasnt feeling happy.. Why wasnt I feeling happy for them and why I wasnt feeling happy for me. The class was for coaching us blokes for the engineering entrance exam(2 yrs in advance!!!). The class had a steady mix of ICSE guys and SSC guys. The ICSE results had been declared two weeks ago. The SSC results were declared 2 days ago.. The happy faces however did not belong to the ssc guys.. Ofcourse they had scored 85%+ which during our times were decent scores, but the jubilation had somewhat been dampened by the scores of the icse dudes.. The lowest icse score in the class was 87%.. The avg icse score was 90%. At that score any ssc guy would be famous in his galli and mahulla, with aunties coming to him and asking him bout what coaching class should her son should join and stuff like that!

Now getting admission in Mumbai is fierce competition, more so in the central suburbs, simply coz there are more students than college seats, not to mention 50% reservation(subject of a different post) and various regional quotas.. Every mark counts, and when you see guys from a different board getting scores as high as 92% , simply coz 90 marks in languages are gettable for them whereas only a handful of ssc students get those kinda scores in languages, you cant help feeling sorry for yourself..

AR's classes continued well into the admission season. You expected colleges to do something bout this gap in the scoring of the two boards. They didnt do nothing..! You expected the State board to intervene.. It didnt do nothing..! The icse guys got admissions in the first list itself.. Ruia, Ruparel were easy pickings.. Sies and Khalsa were too downmarket.. Sies was chosen only by those who wanted their education to be free.. Sies offered full scholarship to anyone scoring more than 90%.. Yeah that included even the icse guys. And the city was full of 90+ icse students.. I lost respect for the college after that.. 

The ssc students  on the other hand were waiting for the second and the third lists. The ones with less than 85%, like me, waited for the fourth list..

Rejection is a big deal when you are young.. When you dont make it in the first 3 lists, its the college telling u that u aren't fit to be in the elite.. You aren't good. You don't meet the standard. Its what a designer feels when his designs get rejected, its like when a filmmakers feels when his movie flops.. But it is tougher here - here YOU are the product..!
The filmmaker can come up with a better movie next, but how are you gonna come up with a better - YOU?

Admists the turmoil of thoughts and emotions, I remember telling myself - "I will make them take me in the next time.. "
Such wisdom could come only from the very young and the super naive..

Now that I look back at those 2 years after ssc that I slogged, I realise I did it to prove to those colleges how wrong they were.. And how their "elite" students wont make it to the Engineering college that I will make it to.. And yet, the thought itself is so wonderfully stupid that I cant help but feel proud of it.




Summer of 2008.
Siemens Design office.

As I was flipping through the newspaper, I came across this article bout a new "system" that will  be introduced this year. It said that the ssc students needed a fairer trial versus their peers in other boards. It said that Icse board had a liberal marking scheme and to normalise that, the govt. has come out with system. 

I couldn't believe what I was reading.. This is what I have been saying all this years! I finally had it in print! Some smart guys in the govt. had finally taken notice of the injustice imparted to ssc students and had come up with a plan.. 

Cynicism disappeared.. Idealism returned.. Justice does that to you. This system was not gonna affect me in any way. I was through studies and college. So were all my friends and everyone I was close to. But I still couldn't help feeling happy that atleast someone will get a fair deal. Finally after all these years, the govt took notice. Thank you Education minister.. You are the man! 

The number of ssc students in the elite colleges doubled! Ruia, Ruparel, HR, Xaviers were, all of sudden, within reach.. Ssc students were finally getting what their marks were worth.




Summer of 2008
Mulund Residence

Last Saturday, I woke up to this - IT'S CANNED


The Mumbai High Court has ordered the Govt. to can the system they used for admissions. They say the system used isnt fair on the Icse students.

__________________________________________________
Now the system :
Lets say you score 83% in ICSE. And lets say the avg percentage of first 10 rankers of ISCE board in the state is 98%, then your percentile will be - (83/98)*100=84.69%ile

Lets say you score 83% in SSC. And lets say the avg percentage of first 10 rankers of SSC board in the state is 93%(yeah! thts the wide gap in the marking I was talking bout... ), then your percentile will be - (83/93)*100=89.24%ile
___________________________________________________

Pray tell me Mr. Chief Justice Swantanter Kumar, how is this system flawed??!! 

Lets assume that you are right, after all you have read a lotta law books and passed from the best schools(Icse were they?), what do you intend to do about this situation? since we are canning this system, is the govt. allowed to come up with a new one? Or do we go back to like it was all these years? 


I have nothing against the Icse guys, some of them are close friends of mine. Half of my cousins are from the Icse board. Many readers of this blog are Icse educated. I think Icse educated guys are very intelligent. They know bout a lotta things. They are exceptionally good at Indian and World History. And are also good at Science, esp. Physics. My knowledge of Icse students is limited to my cousins and my friends, so my observations are an extrapolation of it... 

But you cant deny that Icse is liberal when it comes to marks, and when it comes to admissions ssc students always get a raw deal.. Maybe, just maybe, this new system was unfair to the Isce students, but then, all these years have been unfair to us..   

I read somewhere -"Part of growing up is taking what you learnt from that and not taking it to heart...". 
Mr. Chief Justice, I am taking this to heart, not for myself, but for the thousands of kids who coz of your esteemed decision will have to learn that life is unfair and live with it.. Not that I dont want them to know that, we all figure that out eventually, its just that adulthood can wait, 15 yr olds shouldnt have to go through this..



For the record, no Icse student from A R's class of 2001 could make it to my Engineering college.. 




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IIT JEE - Mumbai tops!

The results are out! Out of the 2.51 lakh students who appeared for the exam 7000+ have qualified. Achin Bansal, from Punjab has topped the exam.

But this post is not about who topped the exam,you will find thousands of posts on tht topic.This post is an analysis of the exam….its actually an analysis of the performance of Mumbai students.

All my life I have heard stories about how my cousins studing in ICSE or CBSE had access to better education.I have read umpteen articles on why the state HSC is no good.

I have heard aunties discuss how brilliant their CBSE and ICSE educated children were and how much better were these boards than the Maharashtra State board.Maybe ICSE and CBSE are better or maybe they are not.The world will always remain divided on these issues.But I found it weird tht the argument tht they put forward to support their statement was tht students from Maharashtra dont make it to the IITs and this is because of the lousy education std of Maharashtra.This was partly true!
During my time(makes me sound old. But I am just 21) only 150 students from Maharashtra made it to the IITs. Out of these 50 were from Mumbai.Too less for a city like mumbai. We had all the riches, all the facilities, still we couldnt make it. The media projected us as spoilt brats who didnt have the perseverence tht is required to get into the IITs. All this inspite of the fact tht the IIMs have a large number of Mumbai students. A high score in CAT requires a lot of hard-work too,doesnt it?.

But the media dishes out what people wanna see/read.There were many readers who seemed to agree with the media.Many of these readers were Mumbaikars(who had completed their education from outside the state). These were the people who made it to mumbai from small towns. They considered it cool to bash the Maharashtra education system.They opined tht the students in Mumbai were spineless. They didnt have the guts to take on the best in the country….

I always predicted tht we will kick ass the day CET type entrance exams take place in Maharashtra. A sense of frustation gripped me nobody understood this simple logic.

You see, we have been bred on subjective exams.In fact we used to get admissions into engg after scoring a high percentage in PCM.(Your blogger had a score of 95%.)
It becomes very difficult to study for both Objective(JEE) and subjective exams(XII).The result-fewer qualifiers.But now things have changed…..

Since now we have CET based entrance,students find it easier to devote attention to Objective type studies. Out of the 45000 who appeared for the exam from Mumbai division, a whopping 2600 have qualified. Kicked some serious butt,didnt we?

Mumbai topper-Harsh Pareek has AIR 8. Also, All India girl topper is from Mumbai.

Thanks Harsh & co. You guys made us proud. Now I wanna hear what the media has to say!

________________________________________________

Btw, it rained tonight. We had a power cut for 2 hrs. I dont understand, why does it happen always? Hasnt MSEB heard about the thing called rain? If the power cut is inevitable why dont we have a power cut everytime it rains?

Its raining cats and dogs as I write this post. Infact there are so many cats and dogs fallen on my car tht I had to remove them using a shovel…er…bad joke!

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