"Maintenance" Vs "Development"

http://www.sastwingees.org/2011/03/16/maintenance-an-untouchable/

A fantastic post on our attitude towards 'Maintenance' Vs "Development" work.

Mythologically, Hinduism enunciates that Vishnu the protector, the God in charge of maintenance and growth visit earth many times in different Avatarams for executing his job.Creator Brahma is banished from having temples because his cleverness leads to low moral ethics (he lied). People celebrate the destroyer, Shiva who paves way for creation and the protector Vishnu, but not the creator Brahma! Yet vast majority of our people are keen to create rather than maintain and grow.

On the other hand, a more basic and practical difference between the two jobs in software is the fear of losing touch and locking up oneself in an old and outdated technology stack, not to mention the potential loss of revenue associated with the experience in the latest, greatest technology. If the remuneration structure is adjusted such that maintenance folks make as much as or more than the folks in development, things can change.

Incidentally, in Japan, people start with the development work and slowly graduate to the customer facing maintenance work! Maintenance work comes as a reward for good development work It makes sense if you think of it. People who tinker with existing stuff find new ways to grow and invent new stuff that helps people immediately which is good for business. Development without association with the customers may or may not succeed.

On the lighter side

I watched a show yesterday in which is this scene. The main character in the show gets sold into a pyramid/MLM scheme and goes out to recruit resellers for him so he can "become rich"! Two religious evangelist walk up to his door steps on their mission and this guy tries to make a deal with them. "You buy this stuff and I will convert to your religion!" That was hilarious. I was lol for a long time.

When I was in college one of the hostel guys was influenced by a religious group. He started attending their prayer meetings and indulge in the belief system until one day they declared that watching adult Malayalam films is forbidden by the religion. The guy was offended and stopped going to the meetings from that time and dropped off from the group eventually! It was very funny then as it is now.

People are sometimes presented with such unusual dilemmas!

Thoughts and Reality

Universe seems to express itself in dual forms. At a fundamental level, scientific discoveries prove that space and time, matter and energy are expressions of one and the same. At an experimental level, we see wave - particle duality that takes us deep into the quantum reality of nature and the idea that 'things change just because we observe it!'

Now that is a bizarre idea. The near 14 billion years of universe history wherein organic life forms like us on earth emerged less than a billion year ago could influence the behavior of universe! If we look and stuff change because we looked, what happened when we were not even around? Did someone else from other earth like planet looked and it changed the course of history of Universe? We know not. The more closely we see, it feels like the more we don't know!

Einstein proved that nothing can travel faster than light. Yet we know that thoughts can travel almost instantaneousness to the center of Milky way galaxy and back to this blog in less than a second. What is thought and consciousness if it is not a physical entity that obeys nature's law as we know it so far? Well we only know 4% of the reality anyway. There is dark energy and dark matter that fills the 96% of the universe that we have no clue on and hence the name dark stuff. May be one day the future humanoids will find.

Bharathiyar's song on reality and dreams come to mind.

ponathellam kanavinaipoal
puthainthalinthe poanathanaal
naanum oar kanavo
intha nyalamum poi thaano


Kaanpathellam maraiyum entral
Maraindhathellam kaanpamandro
naanum oar kanavo
intha nyalamum poi thaano


What a wonderful thought! Every 125 years approximately (max age of humans so far), earth has completely new set of human beings. There is no single human born on or before 1885 today. No one who is born today will live to see the year 2135 with the current medical technologies. Yet we know about the history of Universe and our thoughts travel into the realm of dreams all the time.


After I started writing this blog, I notice that there are scientific papers on this topic. The line between physics and meta physics blurs when we think that thoughts and reality can be a dual expression of nature.

India and the 2nd Amendment of US constitution

I watched two Tamil movies recently and was surprised to see a new trend. In old time movies, there will be a clear cut villain and an all powerful hero who overcomes evil and either changes the villain to be a good guy or hands him over to police. Then they portrayed heinous criminals as villains and they got killed by the heroes. We saw portrayal of bad guys as kings, jamindars, politicians, police, dadas etc. That changed overtime and we started seeing stories of gangsters and paid killers fighting with each other. The level of violence on screen meanwhile went through the roof.

Now we have a new trend. Innocent victims revolting in novel ways to kill the bad guys! "Yutham Sei" and "Easen" portray smart little guys, who mind their own business in general, get victimized by criminals and they scheme and succeed in killing the evil doers! Of course, this trend culminates from a total lack of faith in the institutions in India. The state of affairs signifies that common man has entirely lost confidence in the police, justice system and the social security. Everyone is on their own. Jungle law, the survival of the fittest prevails! A total systemic meltdown in other words. Unfortunately it is not far from reality in places like Madurai (sic).

For a long time I have noticed in Indian society that for the sake of security and protection, people with means need to ally themselves and play subservient to those with muscle and political power. If you are a salaried individual you probably don't come face to face with this power dynamics of the landlords, businessmen and agriculturists. In an increasingly urbanized society that sort of clan-ship is lost. That gives bad apples more opportunity to go after innocent unprotected common folks, especially in urban settings. When the bad guys go unpunished and those who are supposed to protect the innocent play cahoots with the bad guys or stay ineffective with ludicrous case backlogs that takes years to bring someone to justice, more number of people act bad and more innocent people will have to take charge on their own. Thus a vicious cycle is set in motion.

In this context, I see the 2nd amendment of US constitution as a mechanism to increase protection of innocent people. For a long time, I didn't understand the meaning of this bill of right.
"well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The fundamental belief here is that because a nation need to keep an army, individuals have a right to keep weapons to protect themselves!


If you think of this in the mindset of a bad guy, before he dares to commit an evil act against innocent people, if he knows that he may get hurt, do you think he will hesitate a little? Won't there be increased courtesy in dealing with all people? If a stranger walks in to a home and the home owner shoots him down, it is identified as an act of self defense and the home owner is protected by law. House break-ins are the lowest in US! Police treat everyone with respect. You cannot abuse a decent, educated and honest man or women if there is a possibility that they could be armed. It may sound strange. But increasing licensed arms to rightful people who are responsible citizens of the society will reduce crime. After all that was proven by the former commissioner of police Mr. KPS Gill in Punjab in the 80s to defeat the Khalistan movement. He armed and trained the villagers to protect themselves from dacoits and fight against terrorists. Isn't it every individual's right to defend themselves and their loved ones from mindless thugs who run around with swords and terrorize innocent people?


Our college Professor Sri Krishna used to say, "A man with integrity and not intelligence is not bad. A man with intelligence, but not integrity is dangerous" One way to disarm the people without integrity is to arm the people with integrity. Of course there will be a period of lull when the crime may seem to increase when the bad guys learn the effectiveness of the new reality. But I am sure more bad guys will be affected than good ones and the society will benefit by far.


Having said that, a very strict policy should be administered to license the arms to the right kind of people. I am mindful of the literacy levels and maturity of minds of the majority in India. Perhaps a psychological profiling is necessary. A training program and evaluation on ethics and values should be mandatory. If we can conduct professional colleges exams, train reservations, civil services, passport issuance etc in a corruption free manner, this should also be doable.


What do you think...?

Life's a mystery...

Kittu Mama - an innocent spirit from our family, unlocked and liberated from his physically and mentally challenged self this week. Call it a gene mutation, Down's syndrome, a genetic defect or by any other name, he was a helpless creation that toiled in life for nearly over 50 years. Nature's experiments are beyond comprehension to us, the mere mortals.Somehow the 23 pair of chromosomes didn't sit well for him and no force on earth could change that.

My memories of him go way back to when I was a child visiting my sister's house. Only a few memories of him stuck with me. He had six fingers in his hands and lived almost in hiding most of his life in a dark corner of the house. Those days they were growing couple of cows at home. He was good with cows! Somehow it felt like he could speak with them and they spoke back to him. He had no conception of value for money. Anything you give becomes meaningful only after he exchanged it for coconut pieces and snack dal (pori-kadalai) from the corner shop. Be it 25 paise or 10 rupees. Didn't matter. Days, months and years passed and he grew older physically, yet his vision dimmed. His mind and senses were left behind.

The question that persists in me is "Why?" We humans are forever limited in our understanding of the purpose of life and have to rely on our imagination to answer that question. I understand Karma is one possible explanation, if you believe in rebirth and the continuity of soul outside of bodily existence. I don't know. May be it is true, may be not. The question shall remain unanswered and forever a mystery.

Evolution chooses subjects at random to experiment. Some decisions in the ancestry might have increased the probability of those experiments in the family. Many lives are bound by the consequences of such decisions and the nature's experiments that followed. Today, we remain as helpless witness to more than one spirit that didn't flourish, incapable to lead a productive life and thus wither way in the end. Literacy that teaches to avoid marriage between kins, medical tests during conception, general awareness of health would have all helped. But hindsight is 20/20. Call it fate or destiny. What happened, did happen for unknown reasons.  To mourn the passed and witness the living forever unknowingly enslaved in life as dependents of others is today's reality.

May the spirit of Kittu mama be free at last. Some religions belief that earthly life is misery and after life is bliss. Wish it is true for his sake. Rest in peace or pass through another body, let him flourish next time around.

Interests and Values

It is often quoted that "Nations don't have permanent friends or enemies, only interests". We saw an example of that in the past weeks. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was an ally of United States for a long time and helped maintain peace in the middle east by focusing Egyptians away from Palestine and Israel. But when Egyptians rose to demand freedom and democracy, US supported the people's struggle much to the dismay of Mubarak and other similar rulers in the adjacent countries who are allies of US.

Often times a nation finds itself having interests and thus dependency on other nations whose values don't match up with it. U.K and U.S. sided with Soviet Union, a dictatorship under Stalin to defeat the common enemy Germany in the second world war. U.S values are democratic. Unalienable rights of individuals and freedom, protection of life and liberty, and equal opportunity for the pursuit of happiness are the cornerstones of US belief system. Yet, we live in a world where much of those values are only dreams to citizens of many nations. Is it possible for a nation to isolate itself and/or work with only countries that share its values?

For a long time, almost the entire 19th century, US lived in isolation that ended after the attack on the Pearl Harbor during second world war. Technology innovations followed, and the globalization of the world became inevitable. Needs are every where. Nations that produce or can produce valuable goods surplus to their needs, should be able to trade and share the goods with where ever the needs are present. Resources should similarly be traded and used to build goods that benefit everyone. And there starts the dilemma!

Middle East has oil, a precious natural resource that is needed to run today's world be it US, Europe or the emerging economies. Whereas values of the nations that host the oil resource are far from democratic. What do you do? When your core values and your national interests conflict, does a nation isolate itself and not serve the national interest?! Consciously with the awareness to benefit the citizens of one nation, the fate of the citizens of other nation are seen as a jurisdiction of the rulers of the other nation. You protect and serve your national interest, I will take care of mine, went the logic. Much like how families work at a smaller level. But from time to time when heinous crimes, abuse or genocide is witnessed, nations of the world cannot standby and leave that as a domestic issue. UN was established for the very purpose to protect the citizens of the world from their governments and facilitate the world forum to intervene as necessary. It is a different story that UN stood watching over what happened in Rwanda, Darfur and Srilanka in the recent history. But I digress.

Coming back to the topic of interests and values, the recent events in Egypt show that the technology is enabling people of the world understand and demand their rights from their rulers and governments. To what extend will it be successful and how quickly across different nations is yet to be seen.

After pressure from the King(s) of the Middle Eastern countries and also to protect its national interest, US has softened its tone now with a statement that "US will help maintain stability in the region". That is, it will not express its enthusiastic support to the people of Bahrain, Libya, Algiers, etc wherein there is copy-cat gatherings and protests following successful toppling of Mubarak in Egypt. Of course, US will issue strong statements to condemn any violence against innocent people and ask the rulers to exercise restrain. National interests once again triumphs over the core values!

This is much in line with how the choice was handled historically in America. Some of the founding fathers of US, including Jefferson and Washington, while they wrote in their Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal", were slave owners! It took a civil war in Lincoln presidency to abolish slavery. It took another century until Martin Luther King Jr came around to abolish segregation.It is neither easy nor fast to change the hearts and minds of people.

Hopefully in future, the choice between values and interests will vanish and a nation need not have to choose one over the other. Freedom and justice to all citizens of the world, free and fair elections in all countries, trade partnership among nations for the mutual benefit of the citizens of both nations rather than just the rulers of one nation, may sound like an idealistic state of the world. But one that is not impossible; most likely probable in this century.

Welcome Watson!

This is one very smart computer! If knowledge is power, the human race is about to lose it to this machine!

Ambition and paths of glory...

Recently I read these powerful lines from the poem "Elegy written in a country church-yard" by Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.


Apparently Thomas Alva Edison liked to recite these lines to his close associates! A man who was an ardent inventor and profoundly changed the life of entire humanity with his inventions was mindful of his gifts in life and was humble enough to walk by these lines.

A hilarious short film

Very talented fellows!

Winter 2011 - Jan 12 Blizzard

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.