Man with a mission

Our family with Mr. Krishnan

We drove up to New Jersey last weekend to meet a real life hero Mr. Narayanan Krishnan.from Madurai. My high school teacher turned philanthropist Mr. T.R. ChandraSekar (TRC sir) knew Mr. Krishnan very well several years back, much before the rest of the world recognized his work. I have had several conversations with TRC sir on the works of Mr. Krishnan. Because of Mr. TRC's acquaintance we were lucky to get a private audience with Mr. Krishnan on his U.S. tour. We spent some time discussing his vision and the next steps briefly. People were lining up to congratulate him on his great work, wish him well and donate to his cause.

Krishnan is a humble individual with a great conviction for his cause. He is focused on giving 100% of the funds he receives to helping the helpless. We discussed about sustainability and scalability of his operations. His immediate goal, he expressed, is to get the 200 souls on the streets of Madurai and the surrounding 150 KM area to "the home of the destitute" that is under construction. That is an ambitious project to bring all the socially needy and mentally incapable people from the streets under one roof and give them food and the dignity of life. He is not envisioning expanding the effort to other cities or institutionalizing his organization. His primary goal it to have no financial overhead. All those who help him, work voluntarily and are well to do in their life. He is sincere in his vision to deliver quality food and shelter to the homeless and helpless from the streets of Madurai. When I asked him about the continuity of his work long term I was amazed at his answer. He said and I quote "I found this mission when I was 25. When I am 70, I believe God will send me a 25 year old soul to take charge and lead the cause. I strongly believe such an individual will come when the time comes!". It was obvious that he has made up his mind to dedicate his life for the cause.

Suji, TRC sir and Mr. Narayanan

We briefly chat with Krishnan's father Mr. Narayanan (rightmost in the picture above). He made a blanket statement upfront. "It was all Krishnan's wish. He made us believe in his cause." He went on to narrate an incident that was both shocking and showed the magnanimity of Mr. Krishnan. Mr. Narayanan continued, "When I am alive, he (Krishnan, as his only son)  is not even supposed to perform last rites for my brothers when they pass away. Such is our family tradition. But Krishnan came home one day and said he came from the crematorium after disposing off an orphaned corpse from the streets. We were shocked. But little did we know that he continued to do that for many more in the following months and years". We were pretty moved by this personal story of not only Mr. Krishnan but also the sacrifices of the entire family to support his cause. Long after we left from there our hearts and minds were filled with the man's selfless sacrifice and the drive with which he goes about serving the helpless people day after day.

Mr. Krishnan says this as a lesson learned from his work. "All good work will bring in the required support". With this belief, he has started the project to build the home for the destitute as an eight block building on roughly $1.5 million U.S. dollar budget. He has already got full commitment for five out of the eight blocks. He continues to get support for the other three blocks. If you are interested, please visit Akshaya USA to contribute.

Ugly Child 

by Virginia DiTomas

I did not like him reaching out,

I thought, "what an ugly child!"

Until I touched his small brown hand,

Until he shyly smiled.

Though he stood on the dirty street,

Hungry, ragged and unshod,

I looked into this small child's eyes

And saw the face of God.

An excellent performer

Interesting management charts

EMTG - Emerging Markets Technology Group

Facts and Truth

http://timberry.bplans.com/2010/11/facts-facts-everywhere-but-truth-is-scarce.html

"become a paid data liar, by offering to find facts to fit any point of view your clients want to put forth. Call it facts for hire. "


Its kinda sad that this is the truth!

Rules and Exceptions

Long ago my friend and I had a discussion on how one will go about designing the size of a mail box for a household. The case goes like this. Everyday a family gets a bunch of letters such as bills, news papers, magazines, etc. But on Christmas they may get gift packets wrapped up in cardboard boxes. So do you design the mailbox by the size of the biggest gift packet or as a small box that can hold say about 10 or 15 letters? Optimal solution is to build a smaller mail box and handle the once a year anomaly as an exception outside of the box. So strictly speaking a solution or rule that addresses 100% of the problem may not be optimal or preferred in most cases.

"A time to kill" is a popular novel (movie) by John Grisham that takes you through a situation where a brutal murder as revenge gets justified. The author argues successfully that the situation is an exception and needed to be handled as such, by bending the law/rule for that case.

The recent kidnapping/murder in Coimbatore and eventual encounter killing of the accused is one such exception. The horrific crime was handled out of the law by the law enforcement authorities with popular support. Although it is sad that such 'encounters' indicate lack of faith in the justice system, in this particular case people seem very happy with the result. The crime has touched such a nerve among the masses, swift justice was  openly welcomed on the streets. A true exception I guess. If you don't believe in death penalty under any circumstance this will be a problem.

A very talented lady

A worthy minute...

Motivation and setting expectation

I realized there are two perspectives on this topic. Both motivation and expectation can be Internal or External.

Often times I find a colleague refer to a motivation that is tied to strong leadership. When you know you are being lead on a path to something great and meaningful, something that will have a big impact beyond your personal life, that is very motivating for anyone to be part of that work. Capable people yearn for such leadership in general. Other external motivators are money, power, fame, etc.

Similarly, we are driven by expectation that are set on us from time to time. We try to live up to our parent's expectations, then probably our teacher's expectations, in the rare case a boss's expectation if we find an inspiring soul in that position. We expect our children to live up to our expectation.

I often remember this Mahatma Gandhi's quote.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problem."


I find this quote motivating from inside. It is a state of self-actualization to realize that we all can do even better than we do whatever it is that we do. Not for the sake of the benefits, but for the inherent value of doing the best. To be sloppy and mediocre is a choice. "To be the best" is a motivator. The expectation here is not set by any external source, but by oneself. Our conscience is the mirror of us and we know exactly how we do up on our own personal scale. Even if we may not solve the world's problem, we will be well on our way to be the best and do the best. I believe, the result of such being will yield a very productive, useful and rewarding life.

That deserves to go viral...!

Standards and Context

I have always wondered about some of the written and unwritten standards practiced in US. A joke goes like this.

A cop spots a young girl on the back seat of a car knitting a sweater and a young boy on the driver seat listening to music at night around 11'o clock. The cop approaches the car and asks what is going on...The boy replies "she turns 18 at 12 o'clock and we are waiting for that!"

Once someone is past 18 yrs old, anything goes between consenting adults in general. One sees all kinds of relationships like a 20s something guy marrying a 40s something women, a 60s guy marrying a just 18 women, same sex relationships, etc. Yet if you are the President (Clinton) messing around with an adult intern or a Governor (Spitzer) engaging in paid sex, all hell breaks and severe consequences follow.

The latest controversy is with this children's show hosted by a young singer Katy Perry.



The whole country objected to the dress of this women so much that the show has to be canceled from the Sesame Street show! If you look at the video, you will notice that the dress is somewhat edgy, but not vulgar or obscene. Yet it is banned here because this comes as part of a children's show and parents want their children to grow up free from sex and violence.

I could not resist but contrast this with some of the Indian TV shows. We recently subscribed to Tamil channels on TV to entertain my mother. It is incredible to see what our children grow up watching. The costumes, dance moves, projected personality of women in the serials and the general violence in the movies and shows are shocking. It is like people are desensitized to human feelings and pain systematically from the childhood. We routinely see images of people hurt in accidents and a crowd standing around and watching them as if it is a movie. I believe not rating our TV shows and lenient movie ratings contribute to such insensitivity to hurt and misery in life.

Pictures worth pondering...

The latest report,  known as “Trends in Maternal Mortality”, is jointly released by WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank

• Women in developing countries are 36 times more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications than women in developed nations.
• Developing nations accounted for 99% of all maternal deaths, with 57% in sub-Saharan Africa and 30% in South Asia.
• The study shows progress in sub-Saharan Africa where maternal mortality decreased by 26%.
• In Asia, the number of maternal deaths is estimated to have dropped from 315000 to 139000 between 1990 and 2008, a 52% decrease.

Another passport episode

No, this time the experience is not from me, the guy who presumably has no right to speak up against Indian bureaucracy since I live abroad. This is from a successful entrepreneur from Mumbai.

http://emergic.org/2010/09/07/passport-office-part-1/
http://emergic.org/2010/09/08/passport-office-part-2/
http://emergic.org/2010/09/09/passport-office-part-3/
http://emergic.org/2010/09/10/passport-office-part-4/

Song and Dance

Have you ever heard a song, liked it and wanted to see the video of the song...? Sometime it turns out to be a mistake! Over the years it happened to me a couple of times. Some of the best songs are poorly portrayed on the screen. This one is the latest for me. I was so impressed by the poetic lyrics of the song, it drove me to hunt for the song on youtube only to become disappointed by the way the song was picturized. I don't know what is the best way to bring on screen a song so beautiful as this one, but it ain't this way. Well, close your eyes and listen to the song first and then watch it the second time, you will know what I am talking about.

If you have any such experience, please feel free to share. I almost feel like we should collect such beautiful songs and remake them just to do justice to the poetic lyrics.

One man's incredible work

A library of knowledge on various subject matter. Talent diverted from hedge fund into education.

http://www.khanacademy.org/

Thank you Salman khan

My kids love this song!

SemMozhi Tamil Anthem AR.Rahman (HD) - The best video clips are here

This is what it has come down to now?!

I knew water problem was bad in India. IMHO this is an awful solution to the problem. It makes India more dependent on foreign resources especially such vital resources. This is not a sustainable solution. Instead we should explore cheaper desalination plants to convert sea water into usable water.

""Like so many other commodities, water is going global. A number of recent news articles have described water as "blue gold" and the "the oil of the 21st Century". Entrepreneurs are responding to supply and demand imbalance by seeking ways to transport water from countries and regions with plentiful amounts to areas in short supply," wrote Terry Anderson and Clay Landry of what is now known as the Property and Environment Research Center way back in 1999. "John Hayward, a water expert for the World Bank, commented that 'water will be moved around the world as oil is now.'"

25 / 5 = 14

Carnatic music lessons

There are many sites with Carnatic lessons. I find this one to have an excellent coverage of foundational materials.

http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/Homepages/shivkuma/personal/music/varnams/index.html

With materials like this and a local music teacher as a coach, students anywhere can set sail into the world of music.

Speaking of music, here is an excellent analysis of Ilayaraja's contributions to popularizing Carnatic music in films.

http://www.s-anand.net/blog/category/classical-ilayaraja/

Does everyone like you?

everyone...?! Here is a related question. Have you ever been in a position where you have to make decisions for or on behalf of others? Here is an explanation.

'Leading' is making decisions.
Making decisions is choosing between difference choices.
Choosing is rejecting some choices.
Rejection affect people who stand to gain from those choices.
People who lose by your decision usually don't like you! :-)

In an ideal world where everyone is equally smart and appreciate the rational behind decision making, everyone will like everyone else in spite of any loss to their income, prestige, fame, etc. Our world is far from ideal.

So if you are a leader, not everyone likes you. That is guaranteed.

Eating with hands!

Eating with hands is somewhat uniquely Indian. While people around the world invented tools like spoons, forks, chop sticks, etc, we are comfortable eating with our hands. What's up with that? We are bunch of smart people why didn't we invent a tool? We do use different types of spoons for cooking. So why not one for eating?

Last winter I realized an answer to this question. Even if the food is served hot in the plate, when the temperature outside is freezing, very quickly the food becomes cold. If you eat with your fingers in the freezing cold weather, you fingers start to hurt by the time you finish eating! It is pretty uncomfortable. Cold food in mouth goes down without much discomfort. But touching the cold food is not a comfortable feeling. So if you can pick up the food with a tool and drop it in your mouth, that serves as a comfortable meal. In India, we are used to warm weather all around the year. If the food is hot, let it cool for a few minutes and you can pick it up comfortably with your hands to feed yourself. So there is no need to invent a tool!

Incidentally, we have food like Dosa that is difficult to eat with a standard tool like spoon or fork, especially if it is crispy. Either we have to invent a Dosa eating tool or make bite size Dosas just like mini idlies.

People eat sandwiches here with their hands. So it is not completely an alien behavior. The thing that beats me is why the fast food sandwiches are so big that it never fits in your mouth. Eating a sandwich is a scene. You have to wide open your mouth to take a bite. Restaurants boost showing their sandwiches with a huge stack of stuff layered with some bread or bun on the outside. If I am going to pick up loosely assembled stuff to eat, I would rather pick up a bite size sandwich piece and eat it at once. Oh well.... perhaps we need to modernize our food and eating tools...?! :-)

Wisdom and Instinct

The good and bad in life are not black and white as in the movies. They are shades of grey. It is only after the fact, well into the future, you realize if something turned out good or bad. Randomness influences life in a big way. So conventional wisdom is subjective and sometimes one has to completely ignore it. Here are few examples of how some famous people ignored their stumbling blocks and got ahead to make history simply by following their instincts.

"Children just aren't interested in Witches and Wizards anymore." - Anonymous publishing executive to J.K. Rowling, 1996.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Bros. 1927.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - Ken Olson, Founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." - Decca Records executives rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"You better get secretarial work or get married." - Emmeline Snively, Director, Blue Book Modelling Modelling Agency, to Marilyn Monroe in 1944.

"The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad." - The President of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." - The San Francisco Examiner, rejecting a submission by Rudyard Kipling in 1889.

"The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." - Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.

"The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." - IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.

Fascinating Facts - The floating Earth

As you may know, Einstein's general theory of relativity completely changed the way we think about space and time. Instead of objects sitting in space as time tics and tocs, objects distort and interact with space and time together. The theory predicts that earth, stars and other galactic objects bend the space around them.


NASA’s Gravity Probe B satellite proved the theory's predictions. 
http://einstein.stanford.edu/SPACETIME/spacetime4.html Don't miss the great video explanations on the link.

Here's looking at you, kid...

Naked eye view of Earth from Mars - sent by Mars Rover Spirit

Leaf blower cleans dryer vent

If you understand the title, skip to the second paragraph of this article. Unlike in India where there is abundant sun throughout the year to dry washed cloths outdoor, in the North East United States indoor cloth drying equipments are a necessity. Washing machines and dryers are standard equipments in every household. Natural gas or electricity is used as heating source for the dryers. Hot air is blown in a chamber where wet cloths spin. The air absorbs moisture in the cloths and leave out of the equipment and the house through an exhaust pipe. Duct work to let the hot air exit out of the building is part of standard plumbing. When clothes dry at high temperature most fabrics leave behind fluffy cotton lint in the dryer and the exhaust vent. One of the leading causes of house fire in the U.S is the fire caused by overheated dryer vents.

Recently, I was reminded of a house fire of a colleague because of clogged dryer vent. It was time to cleanup the dryer vent since I haven't done that ever. There are ton of products out there that are meant to clean the dryer vents. I picked up one of those and found it was pretty inefficient. Brush attached to a long flexible cord goes hardly two feet inside the vent. Beyond that it is impossible to push the brush since there is no strong hold and the cord bends instead of pushing the brush inside the vent. Then I tried using the vacuum cleaner. Again I could clean up about two feet on both ends of the vent, but much of the lint is in the middle around the bend of the vent, I could see it with a flash light. After much frustration, I was about to give up.

In a flash of thought, it occurred to me to try using my leaf blower from one end. Viola! That worked like magic

The blower pushes the lint in the vent from one end and moves it out through the other leaving the vent nice and clean. The job was well done in few seconds. Not knowing how efficient this will be I ended up having to vacuum the inside of the house near the dryer where the dirt piled up. Next time I am planning to tie a plastic bag or something on the dryer end of the vent to reduce the mess. Or perhaps I should try blowing air from the dryer end.

Well, turns out Leaf blowers are much more powerful compared to the dryer fans. Long time back I learned that with the right tools, any work can get done with much less effort and incredibly well. Apparently, sometimes we have to find the right tool ourselves.

Winter and Ear Infection

Right from the childhood I have suffered from ear infections during winter. Had my tonsils removed long ago. Yet, I had to suffer through every winter at least once, sometimes more than once when the temperature remains below comfortable level. I have knocked the doors of many a specialists, internal medicine, ENT, family practice, etc. Once an ENT specialist wanted to eliminate the possibility of a tumor growth inside nostrils and subjected me to a thin tube insertion with camera and light on one end to look inside. Nothing came up out of norm. One treatment option went like this. We should put a hole in the ear drum and fix a pipe to drain the fluid that builds up around your sinus during cold temperature. This tube will be a permanent artificial fixture inside the head and prevent ear infections! Well, I wasn't sure I wanted to go for that. An internal medicine doc prescribed a nasal spray that you point in an oblique angle inside the nose and spray twice a day. A side effect of that was that it makes you addictive to using it for ever. Other than that I didn't see it work at all. And the worst of all, every time I suffered from the ear infection, I had to be on one full dose of Antibiotics that ran for 30 days a course. That means, for more than half of winter every year I was on antibiotics! The antibiotic is not a preventive medicine; it did not reduce the pain, it just helped prevent further infection, I guess. So, this gave me one more reason to hate winters!

Early this winter, I was at a local Target (a supermarket chain) and spotted a ear muffler. It looks something like the figure shown.

Every time I went out, I wore the muff. It worked like magic! Apparently, my body is sensitive to cold air getting inside the ear canal and reacts by pushing the ear drum from inside. The pressure develops into prolonged pain, redness in the inner ear and thus infection. As soon as the ear muff blocked cold air from getting inside the ear canal, it relieved me of my long lasting problem! What a simple world, that we complicate by over thinking. For the first time in many winters, I am free of ear infections this year and it happened just by pure luck! I am so thankful I found this little contraption that has improved my quality of life tremendously.

IIT lectures online!

http://www.youtube.com/iit

Wealth of knowledge!

Science, Engineering and Technology

Simple minded message


Science can be viewed as a self-correcting process of observation, hypothesis, and test.

whereas

Engineering can be viewed as a self-correcting process of observation, design and test.

while

Technology can be viewed as the wherewithal or state of the art produced by the practice of science and engineering.

- Abstract from A Discourse on Winning and Losing by John Boyd.

Can death be treated?

Can we treat someone out of death? Granted we don't know when the moment comes. But when an individual is old, lived a full dignified, happy life, laboring in the last moment of life, should the individual be "treated" with ventilator, dialysis, blood transfusion, CT Scans, heavy dose of medications, etc.? The cardiologists, the neurologists, the nephrologists and other specialists give their expert opinion on the condition of the individual body part heart, brain, kidney etc., Life inside is fighting back to make an exit..Unfortunately this situation is not unique to our honorable leader Mr. Jyothi Basu who is in his death bed right now.

A Doctor comments the following on the condition of Mr. Jyothi Basu in The Times of India forum.
"He is 96 years old. The life expectancy of someone born in India in 1914 would have been less than half of that, and almost 100 years later, most Indians (and most humans) don't live that long. While the media is reporting all the "heroic" efforts the doctors are making, and all the technology they are throwing at a frail elderly man, nobody seems to care to ask if he would have approved of his body being put through all this invasion and indignity. He has multiorgan failure over age related decline in organ function. An elderly person in this condition is unlikely to recover his previous cognitive and functional status. Isn't it time to allow natural death?"

With the help of modern medicine, we take extraordinary measures to prolong life at all costs. Our hospital Intensive Care Units (ICUs) have made death invisible even to the closest family members. The patient almost always has no say on how they want to pass. As a culture, we are growing ignorant of letting go our near and dear gracefully and with dignity.

Tamil poet கவிப்பேரரசு வைரமுத்து (Vairamuthu) in his collection of poems "இந்த பூக்கள் விற்பனைக்கு அல்ல" writes as follows in the poem "வேண்டுவன"

"...
கடைசிவரை
சுயமாய் நீர் கழிக்கும் சுகம்
உறக்கத்தில் உயிர் பிரியும் வரம்"

(The wants - Being able to urinate without aid; to die in sleep)

Even if one is not lucky to pass while asleep, wouldn't it be wonderful if one remains conscious, meets with all loved ones to say that they love them and they forgive them, labor through the dying process, just as it happens during birth and finally depart?! Wouldn't it bring a sense of closure on a life, not only to those who die, but also to those who live to remember them? Is there is a better way to end a great journey of life? Should a life go in the dark, alone, unconscious and surrounded by strangers? I have seen one too many to go the same route. Now we see the drama being played out in the media for Mr. Jyothi Basu. May him rest in peace when the time comes. India will miss a great leader of the people.

An amazing sight

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

Decibels and Octaves

Happy New Year everyone. It has been a while since I blogged last. Sometime back I started learning Piano. That was my first introduction to world of music - theory and composition. As you may know already, a Piano has several white keys with black keys spread between them. The arrangement has a repetitive symmetry to it, even a casual observer would notice. Little did I know that there were fundamentally just 12 keys - 7 white and 5 black - collectively called as an 'octave' and this set is 'kinda' repeated over and over throughout the piano. Not quite repeated, but a key in one octave will emit a sound of frequency exactly twice as that of the corresponding key in the previous octave. And as for the relationship between keys within the same octave - it is quite simple - since you do not want an abrupt transition when you go from one octave to another, the 2nd key in an octave has a frequency (f2), that is the frequency of the 1st key (f1) multiplied by 12th root of 2. i.e. f2 = f1*(2^-12). This is so that automatically when we reach the first key of the next octave, which can be referred to as (f13), we have f13 = f1*(2^-12)^12 = f1*2 - Thus 1st key of next octave has frequency twice as much as that of the 1st key of this octave - therefore no abrupt transitions in frequency and at the same time an octave is doubled in frequency as it is repeated over.

Since the intention of this blog is not to give you a lesson in music, let me get to the point. When I first heard the term 'octave' while learning Piano, I didn't think about it too much - but it did ring bells in my subconscious mind. One day I was working at my office dealing with a measurement which used log2. When I was comparing one value with another one, I was writing down in my record book, "2nd measurement is one octave higher than the 1st one" - oops, 'octave'!! Now I remembered - in engineering like we use 'decibels' as units when we refer to a log10 value, we use 'octaves' when we use log2. The etymology of 'decibel' is known - it is from Graham Bell, an unit often used to measure sound as Graham Bell invented the sound device of telephone. But in college I always wondered where 'octave' came from - because what has log'2' in common with number 8 ('oct'ave)? Well it is all clear new - every '8'th white key in a piano will belong to the next 'oct'ave, that will have a frequency 'twice' as much as the 1st white key. In other words, if we take two white keys of frequencies fx and fy and compared them logarithmically, and if log2(fy/fx) = 4 then one white key is 4 'oct'aves away from the other. Well, people were measuring sound long before they even heard of electricity - I guess they used the same units they used for sound, which they were familiar with, when they started measuring electricity first.

After all that being said, I still have no clue why an octave contains 12 keys (why not, say, 14?). It might hit me someday!