Difference between Guru and the Student

It was a gurukula, all the students were gathered for the graduation of a student. The student was excited and wanted to test his Guru in front of all the other students. Guru sensed that and simply smiled. In front of others, the student asked the Guru, "I now know whatever you know and I learned all you know when I am quite young". The student went on to ask Guru, "How long did you take". Guru said, "I m still a student and I don't think that I will complete by learning in my lifetime". The student now realized what it takes to be a Guru.

We always get carried away with the things we know. We stuff our mind with a lot of "I" and literally leaving little space for other important things. It is not a great deal to know all the information in this world. With this technology advancement there is no wonder if we come up with a device that stores most of the useful information in this world. It takes a great deal to understand how a thing affects the other. It takes a great deal to understand how things affects us when we change them. Any person with limited lifetime will have limited capabilities and it is practically impossible to have infinite lifetime or infinite processing speed. A lifelong student is aware of this limitation.

The difference between a Guru and a Student is that the Guru understand His limitations and continue to march towards excellence but a student thinks that he has already reached excellence by focusing too much on his merits. The difference between Guru and the student is "Awareness".

Where is Humanity? Painfully Inhumane

It should be more than 15 years and it was early January. I was climbing the mountains of Sabarimala as a kanni swami. We were group of 20 people and segregated into three groups. The youngsters in the group will march fast to identify the best place to rest and fetch water/refreshments for others. There will be thousands of such groups marching towards Sabarimala. I still remember many instances where irrespective of the group we belong to there will numerous helping hands. People all over India will be on pilgrimage and on the way to worship Lord Ayyappa they will offer service. I still remember a 80 year old swami massaging my legs. Now, I feel that it is Lord Ayyappa who massaged my leg. It is such a pleasant experience and a rejoice to see a man serving a man without expecting anything. But we also have people who never feel that it is their duty to help mankind needing desperate help.

Yesterday it was so painful to hear a driver was suffering from a massive cardiac arrest while driving his car. The bosses in the car were supposed to meet a top shot businessman for a party or meeting. As soon as they saw the driver uncomfortable and stopped the car, the three men helped him to find a nice place in a roadside pavement for a fresh air. One of them drove the car and went to the meeting. These three gentlemen can be a big business magnets, how the hell they will ensure that their customers, employees and the environment is peaceful if they can't help a person who drove them. Isn't this driver played a key role by driving them safely throughout their life? Why are they equating everything to balance sheets? What rights they have to claim that they are human beings? It is very pathetic that we have given the economy to private companies who have people like this.

Another ordinary person you just walked by saw the driver and hospitalized him. He also informed his family and currently the driver is recuperating. As usual, the doctors said that had he been hospitalized five minutes late, he would have been no more. BTW, the driver is in his mid fifties and the incident happened a couple of days before in Mumbai.

Many activists are now trying using RTI to know who are those three and who is their boss, their company. I am also eagerly looking forward and join the activists. More story can be read from the following like - Mid Day. Will Mid Day disclose the information they have and help us to stop such cruelty.

Critical Thinking Scenario - Train Havoc

Ram is a software engineer working in Kolkata (a city in India) and heads to his hometown Chennai for Diwali. As he gets his backpack organized, he hears a news channel giving a cyclone warning in Andhra Pradesh (a state in India, through which Ram needs to travel). He packed up things in a hurry and heads towards a railway station. He identifies his coach which is three coaches behind the engine and he made new friend instantly.

His fellow traveler was a retired military man and during their journey they shared their worldly experiences. It was about 20 hours after the journey started in Kolkata, the rain and storm slowly started to build up. It was about two kilometers before a big bridge and it really takes two minutes to cross for a train traveling at 100 kmph. The river was supposedly overflowing as the flood was heavy. When the train approached few hundred meters before the bridge, there was a power failure in the train and the driver was clever enough to pull the break. The train stopped before the bridge but four coaches including the engine were in the bridge. As expected, there was a heavy flood in the river and it was very unlikely that the train can move even if the power is restored.

What will you do in this situation? Fire up you neurons to firefight this scenario.

BTW, this is an exercise to tip off your critical thinking and if it works well, I will share more such scenarios. One thing that you need to remember that there are no right or wrong answers. You just need to respond to this situation.

Be Selfish, Yes, Be Selfish

We get too much carried away with the word "selfishness" and it has be given a wrong intended meaning. It is fine to be selfish. If you take any great thinkers of the world, you can observe that they are selfish. I am not talking about people who claim themselves as thinkers. I am talking about Buddhas, Vivekananda and so many other thinkers that this world has seen. First, they were selfish. For example, Buddha wanted to know what is the root cause of all miseries. Swami Vivekananda wanted to see God. Buddha never thought that his quest to understand the root cause of all miseries is a desire. He was able to bring higher level of thinking. He differentiated the desire and the purpose. Same is the case for Swami Vivekananda.

If we are selfish about our purpose and if the purpose is at a higher level, it is good. Our selfishness will only yield a better world. In this world, we have limited number of purposes at higher level. However there are at least infinite number of ways to realize the purpose. We fail to understand the purpose and get caught in the way (most of us die in mid way). Only way how you can walk the full distance is by being selfish - being selfish to understand the purpose and pursue life to attain the purpose. So being selfish is not really bad, it is a great thing.

Shortly after I published this post, I read Robin Sharma's quote in Twitter, "Best way to improve world is to improve yourself". If everyone is selfish in taking care of themselves, this will be a better place.

Privileged Moment - Slightly Feeling that I m Making Sense

It is exactly 11.30pm (12-Oct) and just now finished talking to my office buddy. I met him once while giving a presentation on how to write white paper. One of my teammates recently told that this office buddy wanted to talk to me. When I listened my teammate, he told me that "Lakshmi, my friend wants to talk to you and he really likes the way in reinvented myself". He went on to say that "whatever my inner guy says that holds now" and that we call it passion. He has started to find resonance and no doubt he is going to be a rock star - it is exactly the resonance of "inner thing" and "your action". When time comes, I will introduce him through this blog. BTW, he is a great guy and just trying to become greatest working on his daily improvements.

I feel that now I m making little sense to people around me. It is a great feeling and it is my privilege to help people to see through things (i do this by just asking questions. I m equally excited because I feel that this is going to be a turning point in my life. I m going to meet my office buddy tomorrow (13-Oct) at 7.30 pm and we fixed the date/time just few minutes back.

Life turns exciting at anytime. Thank you my dear friends. You add a great deal of value to me.

Leadership 101 - If you cannot Change, Don't Complain

Many of us often complain that things are not perfect or near-perfect. Being perfect is very difficult and nearly impossible and so is near to perfect. But, we can always try to be perfect. When it comes to others, we will have highest standards and see others' accomplishments as tiny. But when it comes our accomplishment we always see them through lens. This mentality introduces a fake inconvenience and we pass on our negative emotions to the environment. We question, then we complain and finally we fly away without causing any trouble.

But did we think that "flying away" is not a solution. If you fly away thinking that the other side of the river will be good, you will later realize that it is just another bank which is as good as or as bad as this bank. Mere complaining is a sick way of looking things. It is ok to complain as long as you authentically find ways to fix it. The complaining is the tool of people who solve problems and it is not tool to vent out your negativity.

Next time, when we complain, we need to find what are we going to change with our complaints. Then complaints make bigger sense.

How to become a better developer?

Once I was traveling in a bus and my school friend (who is also a software engineer) asked me how to become a better developer. He was a Java developer and asked me how to be a better Java developer. What are the things that one should learn to become a better Java developer. I answered him that "first be a developer" and then "try to become a better developer". I strongly believe that any person can be a better person only by asking questions. The questions has to be open and push one's own thinking and also others. It is the curiosity and questioning will make us better.

If you have whole a lot of experience and if you just ask closed ended questions, you are quacking like ducks. You can be a better person in saying what a thing does. But you cannot be a person to make something better. It is of no use either to you or anyone around you. First criteria to become a better person is to ask questions that provokes thinking. Once you ask such questions, you will automatically become a better person, better human being, better developer too. Questions matter a lot.

Where does the Next Business Opportunity - Tourism

While many of educated ones go for starting up a tech start up, there are few things that is currently evolving that has a potential for a fantastic business opportunity in future. India, as a tourist destination is evolving and in a very short future we are going to witness increase in number of foreign tourists. Even the people of our country want to explore places by touring across states. Tourism is evolving as experiential tourism and adventure tourism. The people who tour the country want to know about culture, social, economy by experience (by living with masses in tourist destinations). Another aspect is adventure where people tour places like sea, lake, mountains as adventure. If you are avid traveler and fond of traveling, you may want to think or see traveling from business point of view. It is for sure pays off in future. Doing couple of certifications and investing in allied areas such as food, photography, travel and other adjacency will also help.

Gods in Bus - How to Live? One hour story

Yesterday, I was traveling from Villupuram to Chennai after meeting my aunt at Villupuram. I boarded the us around 6pm and the journey was as usual. There was a old lady around 85 years also boarded and she came alone. Somehow she got help from a young chap and said that he would her somewhere in Chennai. There was also another Mr Vasudevan who is a priest and spiritual person. The first few hours went as usual.

Everyone in the bus expressed concern about the lady traveling alone. She tackled everyone with some reasons. Mr Vasudevan also interacted with her, being a spiritual person his interaction was much at the higher level and he connected with the old lady pretty fast. It seems like the lady is in some Pandurangan temple and plans to visit Kasi to attain mukthi. Mr. Vasudevan asked her, if you are with Pandurangan, why do you need Kasi? Why do you want to go to Kasi in this old age? You can attain mukthi in your very place. If possible try to chant and offer work in the temple that your body allows. Else keep quiet and just attain mukthi.

The Patti was quite impressed and took it as order from HIM. She said that she would go back to the temple and never come back. She also blessed Mr Vasudevan that he should get married soon. The bus stopped at Tambaram, both of them got down. Mr Vasudevan gave her ten rupees and they parted as if they are true/long friends. During the journey there was some spiritual discourse and bhajans by Mr. Vasudevan and Patti.

But I could see heaven in the bus for an hour. I learned on how to make meaning and be useful to others.

Problem Solving - Tools are Different, Techniques are Same

It has been a while and restless search to desperately find something, something that is invaluable to me - the experience in solving problems. Without knowing what to do, I have been wandering here and there for a while (close to seven years) only to find that problems can be difficult, the problems can be different, but the solution is common. The solution is to solve them. During my wandering, I found that algorithm of solving problems is same. But the application of algorithm will be different. Let me explain with an example.

In order to explain with a software engineering example, let us take "traveling salesman problem". This algorithm gives near optimal solution to reach nodes of a graph. This is a single algorithm but can be applied in courier distribution, aircraft industry to optimally fly aircraft between destinations and many more. A mathematician cannot say that he cannot solve airline problem if he can solve traveling salesman problem. If this can work for math, can't it work for solution problems?

Yes, it will work perfectly fine for solving problems. If we have experience in solving a single problem, it gives us knowledge to solve many problem and we understand the process of solving problem. When we are trying to solve the problem, it is the approach that gives us solution. The solution is not really the outcome of knowledge you possess but an outcome of the process you follow, the approach you choose and your ability to think through the problem - techniques are same, tools may be different. In order to solve the most difficult problems, first you need solve one problem and the rest is matter of time.

This is one of the priceless lessons that I learned when I wandered like a mad guy. :-)

OOPS - What is Abstraction?

There is song in a movie in Tamil (Alavanthan) and the song sequence happens in a party. Everyone would crack joke and our hero would share a joke. Here it goes. "A little kid asks his parent. What is the meaning of sex? And their parents explain with a lot of struggle. and try to explain the meaning of sex. Finally the kid just asks, Should I check male or female in the application form". We, the developers, without understanding what is abstraction try to develop application. For a kid it does not make sense to say intricacies of something as it incapable of understanding that something (example, sex). The parents should abstract the idea in a form that is sufficient or needed for the level. And sometimes the details are not required.

Another example of abstraction in real world could be appearance of beach sand. For someone who sits on the beach, the sand will appear course but for someone who is traveling in an aircraft few kilometers above the sea level, the beach itself appears as a thin line. In the real world, the abstraction is quite common and we human being appreciate abstraction quite well.

Let us take another example. How will you tell your find that you are going home? Assuming that your home is in "Nanganallur, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India, Asia" and you are in S"an Jose, California, US, North America". You just say that you are going to India. But when you are in India, you give more specific address.

Yet another example of abstraction is someone taking bath. If someone is taking bath, you hardly worry what he is doing inside. You never try to investigate what someone is doing in bathroom. But the guy who is taking bath, he does it with a lot of details. You shed out details when it is not required. Interestingly, in real world you clearly know when to shed out details.

So abstraction is something that gets built up as you move up the hierarchy and you leave out details intentionally to make the concept more generic. Now again, go back and reread the real world examples. It should make sense. Then correlate with abstraction in object oriented programming.