Friday, August 27, 2010

Hope for a new beginning

It's been a while since I wrote my last blog. Not much has changed in all this time. I'm still struggling to find a break. I've always thought that it'd be easy to survive once we find some initial break. The trick is finding that break. The only changes that took place in my life since my last blog are I moved to a new place and I've started playing the league again.

My lease for the last place was over last month. I was so broke I clearly understood one thing for sure that it was expensive to stay at that place. It was kind of crazy to pay $1200.00 for studio apartment. Since I'm totally broke, now I'm not in a position to pay for rent. So I'm staying with my friends hoping that one day I'd be able to find a job and get my own place.

Coming to the second change, yep I've started playing the cricket league again. I've always excelled in the cricket field. I'm definitely not a very quick bowler. When I first joined engineering college, I think I was genuinely quick. I could always change my bowling action to generate more pace apart from tricking batsmen. I'm not sure whether it is the age or my back surgery 4 years back that caused drop in my pace. Now I definitely don't bowl that fast anymore. But all my life until now I've always known how to swing a ball. I think it always brought me lot of wickets. That too I always got very good batsmen. When ever I get to bowl these days, with out hesitation I try to bowl variety of balls. It took long time to understand it really doesn't matter even if you get hit while trying to bowl something different.

Anyway, coming back to present situation regarding my job search the only positive thing I've noticed is I'm getting calls from employers. At the beginning of this month I was very excited to get a call from Nvidia. Of course, after that call I was expecting another call but it never materialized. It would have been great if I did. In my opinion GPU computing is the future. CPU days are over when it comes to higher performance computing. May be that's an overstatement. I can say it's going to be GPU in the next few years. I thought if I could get into Nvidia I'd be walking down the brightest path for the future. May be it's not meant to be.

Then there was a call from Cray, Inc. I guess working for any supercomputing company would be awesome. Recently, I've applied for lot of HPC jobs and I'm hoping to get into one of those big companies like Intel, Nvidia, etc. If I could get a chance to attend an interview, I think I can pull it off. It's a matter of how well you can convince them of your abilities. After that it all depends on how good you are at doing stuff. I think I can do good programming. I've never hesitated to say I can be a good programmer. Unfortunately, until now I've never got a chance. Hopefully it should all change in the near future.

This season I've played 4 matches so far. First 3 matches were patchy in terms of my performance. I guess I bowled well if not exceptional. I think I switched gears to an extra level in my last match. I did very well in every department. I batted down the lower order and played a crucial innings to save my team from sinking. I played some audacious shots. In the end it felt great when my team mates and people from other team congratulated on my batting. Then it self I was sure that I'd bowl well.

Luckily, this time I got a chance to open the bowling and I stuck with my 2nd ball it self. For some reason, I've always loved to bowl at left handed batsmen. I've always loved the challenges like bowling to left handed batsmen. It's a challenge because of one simple reason. Most of the people find it very difficult to bowl to left handed batsmen as they'd have to change their side and shooting angle. I've always loved to make my self excel where other people find it difficult. Like I said I can swing both ways and in my last 2 matches I bowled exceptional balls to bowl 2 left handed batsmen. In my third match I bowled an in-swinger so good that it took middle stump from no where. It landed almost a foot away from the off-stump and batsman had no idea when it swung in late to take off his middle stump. Worst thing was it was no-ball. Anyway, by then that match was in our hands and so it didn't cost us.

In my last match opener from the other team was left handed batsman. My friend told me that he was division one player. This time I bowled an out-swinger to him. But the fun part was I made it to land some where in between off and middle stump. Batsman played perfect defensive shot. But I'm sure he didn't expect it to go through his defense. It was beautiful sight. It was great because it had to go to swing out of it trajectory to beat the bails on the off-stump. It was like going towards leg stump and in the final seconds it changed it's trajectory and narrowly beat his bat and then took of the bails. It was just out right beautiful out-swinger I've ever bowled to left handed batsmen in all my life. I honestly believed it would take out any left handed batsman.

Unfortunately, I couldn't continue bowling as I got severe cramps in my second over. I had to leave the field in severe pain. I knew that my team needed me and so took lot of fluids in that break to go back into the field. I went after the first break and had to wait another 10 overs before I could bowl again because of the bowling after retired rule. In a way it was very good match considering it could have swung either way until the end of the match. Finally, I took my chances to start my second over in the 33rd over and the other team had only one wicket to make winning runs of 20. Their plan was to stay there and runs would come on their own. I guess it was a very good plan considering I was the only bowler left with overs. Which means some other guy had to bowl in tandem with me. It would have made easier for them to get those runs considering we didn't have any other good bowler to bowl with me. All other strike bowlers had already finished their quota. So I took the over in the hope of finishing the game. My captain put faith in me to do the task and I duly did. This time it was a very conventional trick that got me the wicket. I'm sure you must have seen this number of times in your life. Bowler bowls 3 out-swingers, good ones, and then finally put an in-swinger. I executed my plan to a T that it took out the middle stump. Some times you bowl an exceptional out-swingers and still don't get a wicket. Even though I love to get wickets with out-swingers, it's always the other one which gives pumps you up with adrenaline.

It was great when I finished the game like that. I didn't care to jump in the air even though I knew it would bring my cramps back. Luckily, nothing happened like that. I guess drinking all those 2 liters of fluids did the trick. This time I make sure that I take enough fluids it won't happen again. I felt it was a very good performance. Worth of man of the match. I got the ball as a souvenir. The only thing that bothered me was my fitness. It was shocking to understand how low it was. While batting I was out of breath through out my innings. But I guess I was the best runner in my team. I mean fast runner. I believe in taking singles to propel an innings. Plain old theory from God of Cricket, Sachin bayya. Some times I wish I could have those big shoulder muscles to hit big sixes. I hit some good shots using timing. I'm sure they would have been big sixes if I had power in them. I just timed them well to make them fours. Still it was good because all those drives gave me an immense confidence as well as satisfaction.

I know it's a kind of overdoing writing all about it. Believe me you'd also feel just like this when you do something that makes you feel awesome like this. More over like I wrote before nothing is moving forward in my life and I think I need these kind of moments. Hopefully, I can help my team keep winning the matches and this would make me feel great too.

Just yesterday I got a call from one of the companies located in LA and I'm hoping to get this offer. If I could get it, then I could stay here in LA and be with my friends and play cricket. Hopefully it should go just like this. Then definitely, it would be a new beginning. Want to write more, but need to take care of something else. I'll write again very soon. Need to clear my mind off lot of things.

Sreedhar.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Difference between hand compass and car compass?

The other day it came across my mind. There is a subtle difference between these two things. Hand magnet shows the direction by pointing it's arrow towards that direction. Where as the car compass points the arrow opposite to the direction we are heading so that we could see the direction symbol.

For example you are driving your car heading north. If you had a general compass, the arrow with north mark should point away from you towards direction north. But you are sitting inside the car and you can't afford to see the arrow from your side. It could be dangerous too to look at the magnet lying some where next to you. Of course, if you are walking then it's easy for you to keep it on your palm horizontally and see the arrow to figure out the direction.

Where as car compass would be hanging by windshield in front of you in your car. So when you are driving towards north, the car compass should let you know that you are driving north by showing you arrow with north symbol just like the other one does. That's why it shows the north arrow towards you exactly opposite to the direction you are going. Which means they put the symbols on the opposite arrows of original directions. For south you see north and vice versa.

The simple reason for this is the general compass would be some where so that you don't have raise your head upwards. Where as for car compass you need either to raise your head or align your vision with car compass hanging down a windshield.  Even if car compass shows the original direction north when you are driving north on the north side of the magnet, then how can you see the arrow with symbol as it would be away from you on the other side of the magnet. That's why they swap the symbols. Cool. Right?

Some times we just use things and we never think of these small things. For example, you have car compass in your hand and you try to go some where following that. That's it you end up in the wrong direction if you don't know the funda behind it. So be careful when ever you have a compass in your hand to know which one it is. Otherwise you might end up in trouble.

Maps and directions

When I was small kid I was always curious about geography. At one point I remembered names of every country and it's capital city on this earth. I was very interested in looking at earth maps. Looking back it's amazing to see how much has changed over the years. Now people take their gadgets and type the address and bam it gives you the directions. In the old days it was just maps on paper. I still think maps on paper are cool compared to all these electronic maps. If you know how to use these paper maps you know how to locate directions on your own even in the new places or in the places where there is no signal for your cell phone.

Anyway, I want to write how I figured out certain things when it came to finding which direction I'm heading. All these things might sound simple to you. But I'm sure given the situation all these things never come across one's mind.

One day I was walking through the Glendale city and suddenly I had no clue which direction I was heading towards. The good thing about walking is you can simply look at the street names and immediately you know the direction. For example, you are walking on Brand Street and if you look at the street signs, you see either N. Brand St. or S. Brand St. Which means you are either walking south or north.

Then the second thing is to find south or north. The way streets are divided into two halves is by doing it from the center of the city. For example, in Glendale city the intersection of Brand and Broadway is considered to be the center of the city. So, Brand is divided into South Brand and North Brand from the Broadway Street. For example you are walking on south part of Brand street. There could be many cross streets before you see the Broadway street. Which means even if you are heading towards north, you could be on the S. Brand St. for long time. Which means until you don't cross Broadway you don't see N. Brand St. even though you are walking towards north on Brand Street, to be precise towards north on S. Brand St.

So how do you figure out the direction? Simple. Look at the numbers on the street signs. Generally, you see something like 400 S. Brand St., 300 S. Brand St. etc on the street sign boards at the cross sections of the streets (here streets crossing through S. Brand St.). I've already told you that they divide the street from the center of the city. Which means, on S. Brand St. the numbering starts from number 1 in the increasing manner towards direction south. Similarly, numbers increase towards north direction on N. Brand St. Which means if you are walking towards North on S. Brand St. the numbers on the sign boards keep decreasing as long as you walk towards the center of the city. Finally it goes to the number 1 and immediately N. Brand St. starts and the number again starts from 1 but this time increases if you are still walking north.

Otherwise, i.e., if the numbers are increasing on S. Brand St. then you are walking towards south. Same with N. Brand St. I mean, if you are waling on N. Brand St and the numbers keep increasing on sign boards then you are walking north. Otherwise, you are walking towards south. As simple as that.

Same rules apply for the streets aligned in the east and west directions. Which means, even when you don't have maps or cell phone or gps gadget with you, you still should be fine as long as you know which direction you should head to go to your place. If you really don't know in which direction your place is located, then you are definitely screwed. Even then it's no big deal as long as you are not nervous or tense. Just go to gas station and buy one map. Then you can figure out where your place is located and which routes you should take to reach home.

I strongly believe that if you look at paper maps you never forget the entire layout and you get the big picture of city directions printed on your mind. Otherwise, at least try to spend some time looking at google maps and get yourself well acquainted with city layout.

Before I figure it out, one day I went to airport to leave my friend. When he asked whether I'd be fine to go back home from LA airport, I gave him very confident answer even though I didn't have my cell with me to look for directions. The reason for my swagger was that I knew the directions by then. Funnily, when I went there to take the highway, the entrance was closed and I was screwed big time. I had no clue which way I should go from there and I was simply driving in some direction.

Still I was not tense or worried though. The best thing one could do to himself or herself is not to panic in situations like this. More over I didn't have any cash on me or credit cards. The only thing I had with me was my driving license. Of course, just to look for directions I don't have to buy maps but just have a mere look at them. Still, I didn't want to do that as I was not sure how store assistant would feel if he caught me doing that. Anyway, the point is I didn't panic since I knew some what about these highway numbering system and which highways would take me home.

So, I kept on driving for a while in some direction. The one thing I knew for sure was the airport was next to ocean in the west. So if I kept driving and if it was west direction, then I should see the ocean. But I never saw it, so I took right turn and kept on going. Finally, I saw the ocean and I was like ok now I'm driving towards west. Then I went in the opposite direction until I saw some highway. From there some how I figured out.

Even then I had to have known the highways earlier. Otherwise, it would have been tough. Ok now what's the lesson I learned from that trip? Simple. Always carry some cash on you or at least credit cards. Make sure that you have your cell phone, that too fully charged. The other thing you should do is to have paper maps in the car. They would come very handy. Other simple thing that would come very handy is car compass. You could just put it there on the windshield and you know the directions all the time.

In the end, no matter what gadgets and stuff you have with you, it really doesn't matter as long as you don't use your brains. The more you depend on gadgets the more numb your brain becomes. There are even ways to figure out directions by looking at your own shadow.

I'm sure you must be thinking I must be having tonnes of free time to figure out these things. Yes, sadly I do. Still I take pride in myself in figuring out things like this. I'm very confident that I could come out of any situation like getting suck some where in forests.

In the end we should never forget the fact that we are all given brains. So let's put them to use at least now and then. Now, once I figured out how to know the directions by looking at the street signs and by having the city layout, I feel like I don't need directions to go some where. I look at them one time and I'm good to go as long as I can afford to figure out the directions when something goes wrong. Key is start early.

Daylight saving time

Wanted to write about it for long time. I don't remember when it crossed my mind first time. When I was doing my masters in Sweden, I guess I came across the method of adjusting time at certain point of time in a year. In a way it confused the hell out of me to understand why it was adopted. Eventually, I came to know that it was introduced to lower the consumption. I guess it makes sense as in the old days lighting was the only form of electrical usage. It seems they wanted to add the daylight to afternoons and reduce the light in the mornings. If you don't know what it is, let me explain to you. It is a practice of advancing clocks so that afternoons have more time and mornings have less.

Anyway, coming to the point, almost a year back I was talking to one of my friend about it and we couldn't figure out whether it was in effect during the winters or summers. Later, looking at wikipedia we were able to figure out the answer. Then I kept on thinking about it and came up with some solution of my own to find when it would be implemented in a year.

In my home country, India, we don't use daylight saving time since our daylight pattern doesn't change much through out the year. Which means we don't advance the clocks at all at any point in a year. So I thought I could take it as a reference point. Even better reference point is GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) which doesn't change just like Indian Standard Time (IST).

We always take GMT as reference when ever we want to mention the time in different time zones. For example, for now football world cup is happening in South Africa and when ever they publish schedule they do it in reference to GMT. Which means Greenwich longitude is zero degrees. Of course, you don't have to think all of this to come to this conclusion. If you know the map, you simply know that Greenwich, London is on zero degree longitude meridian.

The second step is to find the longitude of some time zone in US. I took eastern time zone and took the longitude of center of this zone from the map. You can get it from the google maps. Generally, 75 degrees is considered for the eastern time zone. So now you know that the longitude difference from Greenwich to eastern time zone is 75 degrees.

As all of you know, one degree of longitude constitutes for 4 minutes in time. If you don't know how I came to this conclusion let me explain it to you. There are 360 degrees of longitudes that go through the earth from east to west. Of course, we need to consider only longitudes since earth always rotates towards east and this is the reason you see the sun in the east when you wake up early in the mornings. Latitudes refer to north-south directions. You all know that it takes 24 hours to complete one rotation around it self. To be precise little less than 24 hours and this is the reason we employ leap years to offset this value. So it takes 24 hours for 360 degrees. Hence it takes 24/360 hours for one degree of longitude. Which comes to a value of 4 minutes (24hours=24*60 minutes).

So now you know that the longitude difference of 75 degrees comes to 75*4=300 minutes=300/60=5 hours. Which  means if the time in Greenwich is 9PM and since Greenwich is east of US, we subtract 5 hours from this time and we get the eastern standard time which is nothing but 9-5=4PM.

But when we did the calculation the time in the eastern zone was 5PM. It was summer and I was elated to know that my theory proved to me that daylight saving time would generally be employed during the summers. Of course, like I said it makes sense since they wanted to advance the clock so that afternoon would have more time. Which means there would be no need to turn on the lights in the evenings as we are advancing the clock.

Ok let me put it this way. For example, at your place during the summer sun sets around 7 in the evening. But during daylight saving time we advance our clocks one our ahead which means time would be 8 in the evening. Right? Of course sun always sets at the same time. It's just we are the ones changing the time by advancing the clocks. So you were used to turning on the lights around 7pm and since we advanced the clocks by one hour you would be turning on the lights around 8PM there by saving one hour consumption of electricity.

In the old days electricity consumption was a big issue and hence they came up with this idea. It no longer is a issue, but still people are stuck with the tradition I guess. At the same time you can argue that how about the mornings. I mean consumption in the mornings. How many of us turn on the lights in the mornings. I mean, by the time we wake up in the mornings there is already sun and so there is no need for lights. Generally, during summers sun comes up by 5 it self. So even when you advance the clock by one hour sun comes up at 6am. Not that much difference considering most of the people don't wake up at 5am.

Finally, just to let you know the clocks are adjusted backward later in the winters. Which means we lose one hour time on that specific day where as we gain one hour on the day when the clocks are adjusted one hour forward.

Over all, I found it to be very fascinating the way it came into existence. Awesome. In the end my theory made me feel happy that I was able to prove that daylight saving time is employed in the summers.

For long time, I wanted to write about it and finally here it is. Next time I'm going to write something about maps which I found very interesting. Believe me, you will too even though it might sound very trivial to you. I'm sure what ever I wrote until now might be nothing. Just curious, did you know all this before you read this or if I asked you to prove it, would you be able to do it on your own with out looking at any web sites like wikipedia? If not, then don't you think you learned something new?

Friday, May 28, 2010

Couldn't have been creepier than this

"Hey Sreedhar, what's up man?" asked me my racquetball mate on last Monday. My reply was "not much man". "So how was your weekend" was the next question. Even though I wanted to give some elaborate answer, I ended up giving casual reply "it's ok". While playing my match I thought to myself "wow, actually, I went to see a movie at the weekend". I started smiling thinking what his expression would be in case I told him where I saw the movie. I know you must be thinking that I must have seen this movie in some great theater or on some cool HDTV. Nope, your guess is quite wrong.

Give a second guess. Believe me, there is no way that you are going to guess it right. The answer is cemetery. Yep you read that right. It sounds creepy, right? Yep first time when my friend told me about it, I felt same way. Even though it sounded crazy I was very excited to go there after seeing how excited my friend was talking about it.

In fact, first time when I went there I was very surprised by seeing the number of people came to watch the movie. I guess the number was some where around 2000. Ok, let me get back to what I wanted to say before I veer off. The name of cemetery is Hollywood Forever Cemetery. According to my friend, this cemetery is for Hollywood personalities like actors, technicians, etc. It is weird to say something like this but after entering this cemetery I told my self that it was once classy cemetery. I guess it has that special Hollywood look.

Anyway, the screening takes place on the back wall of one medium height building. Oho, I'm sorry I forgot to say where this cemetery is. Of course, it is retarded of me to say it now after writing the name of the cemetery. I'm sure you know that Hollywood is in Los Angeles. Even though LA has nice weather through out the year unlike east coast, it gets cold to some times very cold during nights. Which means they screen the movies only during the summers. During my first time weather was extremely good. I had an amazing experience of watching the classic "Singin' in the rain". If you haven't seen this movie before, then I say you do a favor for yourself by getting this DVD tonight. Believe me you would love it.

It is amazing to see everyone enjoying themselves sitting there on the lawn. Everyone is in their own world clapping and whistling at every great scene. The best part is you could bring food and drinks along with some blankets and small chairs. It's like a picnic party. In simple words it was awesome.

First time when I was there it brought my childhood memories back. As I'm from a small village in India, now and then people used to play the movies on big screen in an open area. It was almost 25 years back. I think my fascination for movies started then in those tents. Screening used to take place on a white cloth.

For the second time, last week I went to this cemetery along with Kishan to watch a horror sci-fi movie "The Thing" starring Kurt Russel. It was second screening for this season and it was cold out there. In fact, it was damn cold. Even though I expected the movie to be typical horror movie, it was better than that as it was sci-fi too.

After this movie, I decided to come well prepared next time when we go there. Next time I'll go with some food and drinks, blankets and pillows. Would be nice to have our Indian items like bajji, etc :).

After watching the movie, I took some photos with Kishan's past life girlfriend's skeleton head. Funny thing is they came out very creepy. Kishan loves her so much he ended up making her bald by playing with her hair too much. You can see that it has only very few hairs left on her bald head. I'm adding those pics here. Let me know what you think of them.

Anyway, I hope we go there well prepared next time. The one thing I want to do there some time in the future is doing weed. I've always wanted to do it just to feel the so called high. One day I guess :)

Ok time to take leave. Tonight it's going to be my last day at YMCA. I want to get out of there on high note by playing the racquetball well. One last dig at my friend. Want to make him run like mad dog all over the court :)

Oho by the way I forgot to add this. I'm sure you agree with me that watching movie in a cemetery among those buried dead people is definitely creepy.

 Before and after the movie. I guess the last photo was very fitting end to my experience at that night. I think she was so angry with me that she just blasted my head off into vapors...
Pics: Courtesy of Kishan.

cheers
Sreedhar.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Friendships over the years ...

This is my second post in this month. First time when I started this blog, almost two years back, I wanted to write at least once every week. Never happened though. After long time and for the first time I'm writing second time with in two weeks gap. The reason for this is boredom caused by sitting at home all the day.

Just today I noticed that one of my best friends wrote a comment on my two previous blogs. For long time I wanted to write something about my friends. For some reason I always hesitated to do that. I guess there is no need to look for reasons.

I've always believed that I've a pleasant disposition to make friends with anyone easily. At the same time I've always been hesitant to move from a stage of knowing one some one to a stage of being best friends with the same person. I'm sure everyone has the some sort of theory like this. For me, all my life the only thing that made me feel uncomfortable with anyone was some one's financial status, not in a negative way though. I mean if some one was filthy rich or even richer, then I definitely hesitated to talk to them or felt very uncomfortable being around them. It doesn't mean that I hate rich people. I think it has to do more with my inferiority complexion. In my family it self, unfortunately, we were not treated that well because of our financial situation for longest time. All that changed when I did well in school over the years. Lot of reasons made me stay away from rich people thinking that either they would be arrogant or I wouldn't be knowing the right customs to be friends with them. It is very normal for lot of people who come from middle class background, that too if they are from village it's even worse. In the end what I'm trying to say it it all depends up on upbringing and lot more factors like where you come from.

Anyway, going back to what I wanted to say, in my life until now I can confidently say that I made some very good friends. Until 5th grade I was never in the same school for more than one year. Because of this I never made any close friends. After 5th grade I went to a boarding school and it became home for the next 5 years. In all those five years I was there in that school away from my family for 9 months in every year. It might sound simple for you unless you were in that situation when were kid. I still remember lot of my friends were very scared to be away from their families. First time when parents came to school to leave them there, most of the students were crying like anything. I was ok though. When you stay at some place for 5 continuous years, that too at very young age, you definitely tend to make very good friends with some kids. Yes, I had made an excellent friendship with a guy name E.Kiran. He is a very close friend. He was there for me when ever I needed him. I always consider him as my family member. In fact his family always treated me like their another son. I've had some wonderful moments with him to cherish for ever. Once I came out of that school, I lost contact with most of the students. We both went to different engineering colleges. Still we never lost touch with each other. It's just amazing how the bonding happens with different people in our lives. He is the one friend with whom I can share anything and everything. Sounds simple. Right? Believe me, even though you are very good friends with some one, it doesn't mean that you can talk everything with him. It depends on lot of things.

In the same school, I made another good friend named U.Praveen. It's crazy to think that I had big fight with this guy when I was in 8th grade. After that we didn't talk to each other for almost a year. I know it sounds ridiculous. But it always happens with kids at that age. May be puberty has to do with that, I mean with hot temper. I'll write about that incident in my next blog. Once we started talking to each other, I always felt like he was an amazing guy to be with. Like I wrote above, I was very shy and had an inferiority complex when it came to certain simple yet complex things in life. He was always there with me in encouraging to do things. When ever I had doubts and pushed my self back, he was there to pull me forward. In one simple line, he always had very positive effect on me in every way. He always made me feel confident and proud of my self. The other best thing I liked in him is he never felt threatened or peer pressure by being next to me. In stead, he was always proud to say good things about me, which is a rare quality I guess. What do you say? I'm very happy that I'm still very close to both of these guys even after 20 years since I met them for first time.

Just like you imagined, the next step in making strong and everlasting friendships happened in my engineering years. Students come to engineering at an age of around 18 years. I think this is very important age in every way whether it comes to having a blast in a life or making a life for one self or to go completely astray. I personally feel at this age it takes long time to make good friends, but once you make it lasts for ever. Same thing happened in my life too. I met some of the best guys here. Just like it happened in my life before engineering, I had to stay in hostel in my engineering life too. In a way it was wonderful as it helped me in meeting my current best friends.

If I'm frank to my self and my friends, when I first time entered my allotted room in the hostel, I was skeptical about my roommates. I mean to be specific I thought of them to be not my type. That was the first time I met people from different parts of my state with different slangs. In that room I met one of my close and best friends. For long time, for some reason, we were never close. I guess it was like that until the end of the first year. I'm not sure though. Looking back it feels like I've always known him being close to me. I don't remember the exact reasons though. I think I was too much into cricket to not to recognize people around me. Because of strange reasons, at one point, I even thought my roommates were rude. I'm sure there were reasons for that. May be one of them being me going to the room in the middle of the nights spoiling everyone's sleep or talking too much. May be my roommates thought I was annoying type. I don't know what it is, but now I feel strange to look back and think that I wasn't that close to him. Oho, by the way his name is Kranthi Kumar. I think it happened in certain period where we got a chance to talk about lot of things.

By the time I realized I was very close to Kranthi. Most of the time I used to walk to our most loved place "KPHB Colony". In a way I just can't express everything about him. I can say that he is very genuine in every way, very calm, very matured and has this pleasant and peaceful demeanor. Some times we feel either intimidated or irritated to be around some people. Right? It might be wrong to think like this even before we get to know about some one. I agree. But if you meet him, you immediately feel that he is the nicest guy. In simple words, if I have to I put it this way. He is the soft spoken and nice guy with sympathetic heart for everyone. I guess he can never do bad to not only people but also to any life on this earth. Surprisingly, even his habits are also like make you feel he is a soft hearted guy. I'm very lucky to have a friend like him. I'm hundred percent sure I'll be in touch with him until I die.

The next best friend I made in my engineering time is Kishan. The moment I wrote his name, smile came on to my face. Hey, don't think that he is a funny guy. What I'm trying to say by writing like this is he is a very nice guy just like Kranthi with great wits. I'm not sure when I felt he was a good friend. At least with Kranthi I remember some thing, but not with Kishan. By the time I finished my engineering I definitely knew him very well, if not I was best friend of him. If I remember right, I always thought, in fact Kranthi too, Kishan and his friends were all the way in different league. Even though Kishan and his friends are from middle class families, it's just that for what ever reasons Kranthi and I felt that we couldn't connect to them in certain things. No matter what it was, at one point of time we used to spend lots of time together in the hostel, be it in going to colony or preparing for exams. The other thing that brought us close was that we were all in the mechanical major.

After engineering, we all had to go in different ways in search of good life. Don't know whether it is true though. I guess just like anyone else we also went for what everyone goes for. As simple as that. I went to Sweden for my masters, Kishan came to US and Kranthi stayed back in India. Over the next few years the only contact we had was either through emails or phones. All these years friendship with Kishan grew stronger and stronger. The best part with Kishan was he always respected my views and listened to what I felt. More over he was there for me in every possible way. After coming to US, financially, God only knows how many times, he helped me like anything. In one word he is always there for me. The best part with Kishan is he doesn't try to be preacher. In a way I feel Kranthi, Kishan and I have the same kind of mentality in most of the things. What ever it is, if we get together, we could definitely talk for hours with out feeling that the other person is dominating or trying to put his thoughts on each other. In a way I feel all of us know our boundaries and intelligent enough to understand each other's limitations and feelings.

There have been few more friends whom I consider very good friends (Ramesh, Vijay, Anil, Dadi, Vijay Bhaskar and many more). Now I feel I can never make these kind of friends again in my life. Once we get into married life, I think it is impossible to make any close friends. In simple words if your wife becomes more than your best friends, then you are lucky. Otherwise consider spending time on watching lots of TV.

Anyway, I just felt like writing something about my friends. What ever I wrote here was not coherent at all. I guess it doesn't matter. Even though I wanted put my random thoughts and feelings into an ordered manner, it was just too much going on in my mind to put it that way.

It's been long time since I met Kranthi, Kiran and Praveen. I'm kind of lucky to live close to Kishan here in LA. I meet him very often. I don't know how it would have been if he were not here. I'm eagerly waiting to meet Kranthi, Kiran and Praveen in the future. Hopefully it should come soon. It would be really great to meet Kranthi along with Kishan. Same is the case with Kiran and Praveen. In putting American words I just want to spend some quality time with all my friends. I'm sure there is hell lot of things to catch on. Let's see how these things will roll. Only time will tell!

cheers
Sreedhar.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

For now, confusion prevails over aspirations ...

It's been a while since I wrote on this blog. Since my last blog, even though lot of things happened in my life, it feels like nothing is happening and it's moving at a snails pace. I guess the reason is simple, I don't have job.

For most of the people, life is composed of simple things like going to school for almost 15 to 20 years and then finding a good job, then getting married and have children and then facing mid-life crisis, etc. For me first part continued more than 20 years, unfortunately. I'm not sure whether it was unfortunate though. May be it was fortunate too if I start looking at it from different angle. Anyway, going back to the job issue, I haven't completed my degree yet and still I got out of university in search of job. It's been almost a year since I came to Los Angeles in search of job and nothing happened. In a way it makes you dull and it's hard to come out of this shell. Some times I feel everything gets dragged like anything. Then I tell my self this is part of life just to feel better. Sucks, right? I know it does.

With my friend Kishan's help, last October I attended a supercomputing conference in Portland, OR in search of job and hoping that meeting people would help me out in this regard. In a way I did meet lot of people in this area. Some one from a university promised me that he would help me out. In fact he kept his promise and sent me an email with job postings in his university. Since these jobs are in the university it's taking long time. Now I'm patiently waiting on this opportunity. In a way it's good for me too since it's going to take at least another two months for me to get my employment authorization.

Overall this is the reason I don't know what to do right now. Everyday I go to mail box with lots of hope :). Sounds funny. Right? I go to mail box hoping that I'd have some good news. Most of the time it'd be empty. Even though I get disappointed for a while, I feel great again with in no time. The reason is there is always tomorrow.

Finally, I took a great decision not to play the league this summer. I still remember that when I was in 12th grade, I used to watch a movie pretty much everyday. I lived in hostels right from my childhood. Until 10th grade always there were teachers supervising us in the hostels. It was kind of jail even though it helped me a lot in every way. Freedom wise I always wanted to get out of that school. Right after 10th grade I got that opportunity to get out. I went to the next big city to my village and joined a college for my higher studies. Since I was living on my own and had no supervision, I went wild in every way I guess. I used to go to movies pretty much everyday. You might feel I'm crazy if I told you this. I used to watch same movies repeatedly for weeks before I thought it was time for some other movie. I was always fascinated with movies. More over this freedom issue was there. Overall everything made me go crazy in a way.

Still I did very well in the school. Being a school hater, most of the time I was absent in the school. Good thing for me was even though I hated school, I always loved to know things from books which made me study all my courses. More over it did good to my knowledge since studying on one's own helps immensely well. More over I always had this competitiveness. I always think of my self as exceptional when it comes to anything and everything. It might sound I'm boasting or overconfident. Definitely not. I just don't give up on anything until I get it and this kind of attitude helped me like anything in my life until now. It's the same attitude when it comes to doing well in the school by getting good grades. Some times I feel as long as I have knowledge in it it's fine.

So all the time I ended up studying on my own and I used to study just before exams all the night. I used to do night outs and go to the exam with out breakfast and no sleep at all. If you eat before going to exam, that's it you are done. I mean you'd feel damn sleepy and you can't do well in the exam for sure. It was my theory and it worked for me all the time. Even though it worked for exams, it didn't work that well when it came to engineering entrance. I never cared about it when I took it first time while I was in college. As usual, I didn't get that good grade since I was busy all the time in playing cricket. Even though I knew I'd get bad rank I got very disappointed when I saw my rank. I immediately promised my self not to play cricket and watch movies until I finish my next engineering entrance. In fact I kept my promise to my self in not watching movies. I feel proud of my self when ever it comes to my mind that I didn't watch movies for whole one year considering my love for movies. But I failed miserably in keeping my other promise which hurt my goal really bad. I couldn't stop playing cricket and in fact I started playing more and more. In the end I didn't get exceptional rank but just good rank.

Then I joined engineering college and in those four years time I understood one thing for sure. Even though I always knew that getting good rank is not an indication of how good and talented you are, some where it made me feel different. But during those four years of engineering, I understood for sure some of the students who got exceptionally good ranks are not that great. In fact most of them are just bookish. In a way it has to do with our educational system.

I still remember some of my friends thought I was not that good compared to them until something proved to them opposite. At the end I got very good respect from everyone, even the ones who always thought they were too good for everyone. The funny thing is these students always had a way to look down on other students in something. I guess they never were exposed to out side world. Or may be too spoilt.

Anyway, going back to what I wanted to say, I'm hoping my decision to not to play cricket would bring some luck :) this time too. I know it's kind of stupidity to believe in something like this. It's just a belief even though I know for sure that only working hard would bring us luck and there by results.

By the way, I wanted to write something else too. Lot of guys who thought they were too good for everyone ended up doing those same jobs everyone does. I don't know whether they feel it now. May be not. Everyone has to feel special with themselves. That's the nature of life I guess. But if everyone is true to themselves, most of use are same when it comes to these things. Very few people make them special in other's eyes too by choosing to do something special in their lives.

What makes those very few people special. If I'm not wrong, the guts to do something different from most of us do. For example everyone of us wants to go for jobs and there by having security in leading life. But very few people deviate from it and take risk in doing something else. I mean in achieving some thing great. It doesn't have to be like getting known through out world. It's just enough if you are known for your talent at least in your community. How many of us chase our dreams of becoming something we have always wanted to be. Very few I guess. Right? The reason is fear in our minds. We fear to take risks.

Most of us have dreams. But before we try it out, we starting thing what would happen if it failed. The funny thing is you'd know the result only when you try. Still no one tries out of fear. It's just we want to go in very ordinary and safe route that has been already followed my millions of people.

This is where I guess mid-life crisis comes into picture. Since by that time we know that we can't realize our goal of becoming someone in life, life becomes boring and frustrating. During this time only people start doing so called bad or weird things in life.

My friend and I talk about it very often and we want to do something. I'm still not sure how we are going to do it. I don't know about Kishan. He has his own dreams. When it comes to me, I feel I'm a very confused guy right now. Some where I feel I'll do something for sure out of frustration, definitely good though. If I look back in my life until now, I have always got what I wanted. I have enough guts to follow my dreams and if needed I can go to any extent.

It's hard to imagine next five years of life. I still imagine my self doing something better than what I consider ordinary. Right now my mind is filled with lot of ideas. But the problem is nothing is clear and like I said before I'm very confused about everything. Good thing is even though nothing is going well or nothing great happened for long time, I still feel great in every way and I think this mind set would be good enough to take risks to realize goals, even though nothing is clear right now.

Anyway, for now it feels better to put these confused mindset here. Let's see how things are going to be by the next time I write.

cheers
Sreedhar.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Childhood - School means hell

When I was in my teens I always wondered how my life would turn in the later stages of my life and how many friends I would make, etc. Looking back at all these years, in fact I made few good friends and just like I thought life was a mix of ups and downs. For long time I had this desire to put it here in my own words to express what I've been feeling for quite a while. Most of the times when I talk to one of good friends, I always tell him that engineering days were the best part of my life. So, I'm going to write down about all the characters, including me, here.

Where did you spend most of your childhood? What kind of question is that? Yeah. Everyone spends their childhood days with their parents. Right? This guy didn't. He spent his childhood with lot of kids of his age. People always told him they thought that he would never leave his mother even to go to school. Even his mother thought that he would have tough time leaving her. In fact, when she tried to send him to school, he resisted so hard she decided not to send him until he was six years old. Not sure how it happened, but some how just like any other kid he had to go to school.

His house was little bit away from the village. Living next to rice mill was not a pleasant thing. But this kid never noticed it. For him the entire world was that rice mill. What else? There were two families living there. Both families owned the rice mill. Since one is not allowed to build rice mills close to villages, they had to live away from the village.

The house was built in late 1970's. It had two big rooms. First one was used as a place to sleep and keep clothes, etc. The second room was called God room. No one knows why God wanted one big room. Kid never understood the concept of giving that entire place to God since he always thought single person wouldn't need that big room. He never knew that it would puzzle him very much in the later stages of his life. He didn't know that it would take long time to understand the concept of God.
This house had veranda in front of these two rooms. The top of the house was covered with special thin bricks. The top of the veranda was covered with long wrinkly plates. The open place in front of the house was filled with blue stones which looked like big blue slates.

Finally, when he turned 7, he had to go to school along with his cousins. This kid never liked the idea of spending most of the day in the shabby school. He had to walk almost a mile to go to school. He always enjoyed looking at the small brook going through the village, when ever he walked to school. Sometimes, he even stood next to the brook to see the swirling flow of water. He was always amazed at the way this brook gets filled in no time during the rainy season. When ever his elders asked him not to look at the brook, he couldn't understand the logic behind it. The reason they gave never satisfied this kid. They told him that it would make him unconscious if he looked at it for long time. He proved it to himself that it was wrong as nothing happened to him after staring at the water for long time. In fact, he always thought that it was the beautiful thing to look at. It was full of water. It seemed aggressive trying to reach it'd final destiny. This small brook made him interested in knowing more about the oceans, when ever teachers talked about them. He was always curious to know how big they could be.

The other interesting thing he noticed while going to school was bus-stand. It was next to bridge on the brook. People always sit on the bridge and talk to each other. Most of the village people were farmers. Early in the morning, all these farmers or other people who want to go to towns go to this bus-stand and wait for the buses. In a way it was a nice place to go through. Being a kid, it always interested him to look at all those pepperments and some other eatables in those small shops. The most interesting thing at that point of time was an ice. When ever he had some money like 10 paise, he went for this ice, which is nothing but just plain ice put on some small stick. It was a favorite for kids. He was no different. Then the special thing to buy when he had 25 paise was milk ice. The name it self suggest what it was.

The other parts of the bus-stand were occupied by cool-drink shops, hotels, hair-saloon shops, etc. It had 3 main small time hotels. All these hotels served breakfast, lunch and dinner. The main business for these hotels was breakfast items. Being the center of many villages around it, it always had tonnes of people early in the mornings. People always wanted to go to the next town Atmakur, 15km away from it, as early in the morning as possible so that they could come back early in the evening after finishing their work. This town is the only place which had big hospitals, cinema theaters and other important stores for farmers. This kid was always excited to hear something about this small town.

The three hotels were run by three Muslim families. Most of the other shops also belonged Muslims. This kid always thought that the only thing Muslims could do was having small shops like the ones in the bus-stand. He was interested in only two stores. Being a kid from the family owing rice mill, every one in the bus-stand knew him. He always felt shy to go through the bus-stand for unknown reason. It was funny to see the owners of the hotels competing to get the people into hotels. Eventually, he understood that owners of those hotels hated each other.

Finally, after walking past the bus-stand, this kid had to walk for another five to ten minutes before he reached the school. He always liked the place where the school was built. It was surrounded by lot of trees. This school has lot of open space to play the games. It even had some place with full of sand. This school had one big room and the roof was covered with concrete which always looked like it was going to fall down any minute. This school was for 1st-5th grade students. 1st and 2nd grade students sit out side in the veranda and other grade students sit inside. It had two teachers. Head master used to take classes for higher grades. The other teacher used to attend lower grades.

This kid always waited for the evenings so that he could go back home. The other best part of the day for him was interval breaks. It used to be for 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, all the kids used to run to the play ground and some of them used to go to trees next to the brook. One of those trees had very small sized fruits which kids called red-ink fruits. The reason they called them with that name is that these fruits made the mouths of kids very red after chewing them. Kids always loved the idea of chewing them and fight like actors in the movies and fall down to the ground with mouth bleeding.

After learning how to write and read in Telugu, the school was no more fun for this kid. He always thought that he could all that they teach in the school on his own. In fact, he never paid attention to those teachers. But one thing that made this kid extremely curious was reading all those books. Once he knew how to read them, he finished all those books with in no time and then the school was boring. But the best part that comes with knowing how to read was news papers. Waiting for the news paper to come was the most painful and at the same time most sweetest thing he could feel. At a age where he could understand the small things happening in the world, the news paper was the best thing that could happen to him.

Eventually, when ever he found some novels or some books, he got into them so much that he couldn't notice what was going around him. Soon, he was known as the bright kid to everyone. First time this kid understood that he would be treated well among the other kids as long as he did well in the school.

to be continued ...

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About Me

LA, CA, United States
Here I write about the battles that have been going on in my mind. It's pretty much a scribble.

Sreedhar Manchu

Sreedhar Manchu
Higher Education: Not a simple life anymore