Jazzy Night

It’s been two weeks since I moved here but yesterday was my first real outing in Peoria. Brad and I went to the Contemporary Art Museum of Peoria. Our interest – Dorann and the Mystic Soul band. It is a local band usually playing jazz, pop and blues. I did not know what to expect out of it as it was my first experience of this kind. Brad on the other hand was quite excited about it as an ardent jazz lover he was dying to go there for weeks. The set up was interesting and interesting enough was the idea that you bring your own food and drink. Needless to say that we did not know, and hence went there unprepared. There was considerable crowd when we reached and music was already on. It took me just few minutes to come to realization that we were the youngest in the room.

The first song we heard was a pure jazz tune but what followed was something else. The band switched to other popular tunes like ‘we are a family’, ‘lady marmalade from Moulin Rouge’ etc. I did not recognize many of the songs. Crowd was on their feet all the time. I was just amazed to see some of the ladies dancing that would embarrass today’s teenagers. It seemed that they have not aged or at least did not lose their groove in all these years. The energy and enthusiasm was unbelievable. Next to us was a nice couple who brought a picnic load of food and drinks with them. Seeing us sitting there without any food, they offered to share their food. We took some chips and salsa from them. Again interestingly all the flavor of chips like black beans chips, guacamole chips etc. and Mango salsa, Brad or I never had. It was two hours of nice music, not necessarily jazz what we expected. Brad seemed to enjoy though he might be a little disappointed as they played less jazz and more blues. But I must say that when I came out, I was very happy with what I experienced last night.

Houston Chronicles

Meanwhile (before I join CAT) I decided to travel to Houston to see an old friend of mine. It’s been six years since we last met, so I was excited. On my trip, I saw Jaime Hyneman of Mythbusters at St. Louis airport. I have always been a fan of Mythbusters and these days I am watching it regularly. So to see him on the airport was like the icing on the cake. He was kind enough to grant me a photo with him. It was amazing to see him walking just like an ordinary person. I guess few people realized who he was and went to say hello and a handshake.

Houston felt hot and humid from the outset, much like Surat or Mumbai. Vimal picked me up from the George H. Bush Intercontinental Airport (I was in Bush Country now) and on our way to home we picked Namrata from University of Houston. In the course of next few days I saw/visited many places and met most of Vimal’s friends. Places like the Swaminarayana Temple, Moody Gardens, Galveston Beach, Kemah Boardwalk, San Jacinto Monument, Battleship Texas (USS Texas) and Minaxi Temple. It turned out to be an awesome trip as I did not expect to see so much. The most satisfying moment was to visit the beach after a long time. It was nothing like the last one I saw in California, however there was sand, sea and plenty of babes. On a social note, it was heartening to see a big Gujarati student community there. Seeing them cooking and eating gujju food; chatting and debating in Gujarati made me a little nostalgic and I felt that I missed out on being around Gujarati friends. I was happy to see Gujarati people doing higher studies as they might be well known entrepreneurs but hard to be found on campuses.
I guess the only thing I was not prepared to experience was my friend being a very different person. We think that we know our friends; their roots and fundamental beliefs that we don’t think will get changed in time. We expect them to treat us as we treated each other last time. We expect to be the same old friends but I guess most expectations do not come true. Why so? Well, I am also not the same person I used to be years back. We evolve in time, get influenced by people around us and get affected by major events. Our likes and dislikes change as well as priorities. We pick some new hobbies/interest and drop some old ones. Perhaps the most important thing is that we don’t see life the way we always used to see. A new person (a new place up to some extent) brings the fresh perspective in life. I guess that is what has happened to most of my friends. Perhaps I have not met anyone worth changing my convictions and life-style so far.

Done with Defense

So finally I am done with my Ph.D. and I said the final bye to academic studies. I have never felt more relaxed in my life than these days. To begin with, the final dissertation defense was not difficult. Everything went perfect, as planned. The presentation lasted exactly 35 minutes and the Q and A lasted about half hour as well. The committee was happy with my answers and had just a few cosmetic suggestions at the end. In next few days, I corrected the dissertation and submitted to the graduate school. Also I started talking to Caterpillar to initiate the relocation process. All the paper work is done and now I am just waiting for the moving date. At the same time I am excited for the shopping phase as I plan to buy everything new – dinnerware, silverware, kitchen utensils, auxiliary equipments, furniture and even clothes. It is going to take me a few weeks before I feel settled there.

This spare moment brings me to thinking that this feat means nothing if I don’t succeed in industry. My knowledge and skills will be tested with real problems and real devices. In this course, I have learnt many proven theories and introduced a few of mine own but a new theory remains a theory until you prove them. It has to be corroborated by some experiments. One more way to put this into perspective is that information gained in engineering is very book intensive and if I don’t experience this knowledge first hand, it will be long gone. Perhaps more than anyone else, I want to put my knowledge and ideas to test, a test that does not involve papers and pens.

Am I There Yet?

Currently preparing for my doctoral defense (14 April), I believe that I am at the most critical stage of my life. This defense is going to be the mother of all exams. I am quite nervous yet anxious to face the music finally. It has made me think about the whole process and an equally important question - whether I am ready for the industry?

When I started Ph.D., I was warned by many friends working towards their Ph.D.s that it is a very tough and arduous path. People go crazy and sometimes think of doing the unimaginable. Even though I have strong will-power, I never thought that I am above all or these things would/couldn't happen to me. So I was uneasy at the start and I thought the qualifying examination would be a good milestone to decide if I could do it. I dedicated three months to preparation, turned sober for this period (friends did not like it) and passed the exam. It gave me the much needed confidence and realization that it was not that bad after all. Next two years were quite different. I experienced many events and emotions; had many set-backs and success while doing research but I knew that I am almost there. So when I am thinking about last three years today, I think that the process was not as tough for me as I imagined at the outset, rather it was more tiring and frustrating to an extent. The key reason being, I have been in graduate school for almost six years now, more than any person I know. While I was sharpening my academic knowledge all my friends were doing real jobs and doing real stuff. These friends from school and college have been working for 2-6 years, almost all are married and even 'lucky' few have kids. As stupid as it may sound but I do compare my life at this point with them and find myself behind. To my comfort my good friend SONA keeps telling me that I have achieved a lot more than them and even before turning xx. Well, I feel happy for that.

So knowing that I already have a job to begin as soon as I am done here, friends (some are students, some are working) have told me that I would miss this student life. But they get surprised when I say that I won't (with confidence). What am I going to miss - going to bed late, those lazy weekends, hanging out with friends, the parties, carefree days in general or is it just this fear of getting out in the real world and being responsible/accountable that keeps most of them longing to be students forever. The thing is I want to be taken as a responsible/accountable person, I want to be taken seriously for my knowledge and skills or else all this hard work so far will be useless. The annoying part is that most people don’t realize that this not-being-student phase won’t be the first time for me as I have worked in India and USA. Also my expectations in life might be different from theirs. Or may be I am not a nostalgic person as I hardly look back, mostly don’t look at the pictures of the most fun parties or camping or road trips I made. And finally haven’t I had enough of carefree life, I think it is time to get serious.

Tulsa Diary

It was a pleasant get away for me and my friend Akbar to go to Tulsa, OK over this last weekend. It is the spring-break at University of Missouri and almost all of my friends have gone to their families and relatives. We stayed here but got bored in no time and we cooked up this plan to go there in one hour as we both have friends there. It is about 350 miles away from Columbia, MO and we planned to drive. We were not expecting anything out of this trip however we did see some interesting things there.
On our way to Tulsa, we saw “World’s Largest McDonald’s” sort of arched over I-44. The fact is that it is only largest in terms of space area however there are two other McDonald’s, one in Beijing and other in Moscow which are bigger in terms of seating capacity. On our first day we ate in ‘Desi-Wok’, a cross-over kind of restaurant serving Indianized-Chinese food. The food was good and plenty for the price. In the evening, my friend arranged a get-to-gather of his office friends in the sport-complex of his housing colony. We played pool, saw the stupid movie ‘Rat Race’ and finally ate home-made food. It was over all fun. We got to meet many Indians there working in different companies. Akbar got to meet one Bhopali girl and was happy about it.

On the second day, Akbar’s friend Anuj came to see us. This is a crazy guy who drives car like he is flying a helicopter and used to turn the car at his will. Anyways, we went to a different Indian restaurant called ‘India Palace’ for the lunch. The food was ok, not as great as the other day as it was buffet with very limited dishes. Then we went to the ‘Riverfront’ on Arkansas River. It was an awesome day with warm temperature and cool breeze. There Akbar bought a native Indian pendent for his girl-friend. Also there was this good café on the river and we enjoyed the music played by some local band while sipping our coffee. While driving back to home, we came across a local university called Oral Roberts University with its unique architecture of buildings. See the images. In the evening, my friend and I went to a coffee house just next to his house. We talked about our old days at Bajaj Auto and relished some of the interesting incidents. Later that night, we went to a local Italian restaurant and since we had a late lunch, I just ate a large green salad. Next morning we returned to Columbia. I think this trip at least recharged our batteries and most importantly I got to meet my friend after almost 6 years. I was happy.

Madhuri Dixit at Filmfare

This is a video of Madhuri Dixit performing at 2006 Filmfare awards. Any Madhuri fan must watch it.

Newsweek Article on India

This week's Newsweek is a must buy/read for Indians. It is about the rise of India as a nation. Here is what I think about the article in brief. Fareed Zakaria did a wonderful job of covering the many complex facets of India as it marches to stardom and basks in its moment of glory. The article was balanced and provided facts and numbers that astonished even me-- an Indian. That America is finally seeing India as a huge success story and not a nation fraught with poverty and disease makes me proud and happy. However, I strongly object to putting Padma Lakshmi on the cover. Though easy on the eye, Ms Lakshmi is hardly deserving of such an honor given that her major (and dubious?) claim to fame is writer hubby Salman Rushdie. What’s more, she lives abroad and will not even be recognized by a majority of Indians. I would have chosen a more fitting Indian personality or key entrepreneurs whose brilliance and efforts have ushered in India’s Golden era. Finally, I believe that Indo-American partnership, be it in commerce, education or even the military, will greatly benefit both countries

Murphy’s Law

Two nights back I had my first encounter with police. I was pulled over by a cop as my license plate light was not working, good enough. But he asked me ‘where were you coming from, sir’ and truthfully I replied ‘DejaVu’, a local pub. He asked in return ‘how much did you drink tonight’ and I replied ‘just one beer’. This is pretty much true as I hardly had one quarter of a beer and half a glass rum. He then told me that he wanted to make sure that I was capable to drive and asked me step outside for some drill. Later he checked my eyes, stability, and state of mind by the usual tests they do to check DUI. Finally, he used the breath analyzer to check the alcohol content in my body. I passed the entire test with flying colors and he let me go even without any warning. I was happy and so was he.
The entire story sounds trivial except two things that it was my first pull-over and the second and more importantly, this is the first time I was driving when I had something to drink. I am very strict about not driving even when I had just one drink. Every other time I had gone out to drink, my friends who were sober drove the car. I always think that the infamous ‘Murphy’s Law’ applies to me more than many friends and this incident was a classic example again. What are the chances that you get pulled over for (for the first time) for broken license plate light, when you were driving from a bar/pub with little alcohol in your blood (again for the first time).
This story reminds me of countless time I was stopped by police in India for driving moped without license as I was not 16 yet. But as soon as I turned 16 and got my license, I was never stopped by any cops even when I went and asked a cop for directions. It also reminds me of needing a few months old credit card statement when just a few weeks ago, I scrapped all the credit card statements that I had been saving for past five years and thought that now they would be of no use.
Well, I learnt my lesson and will not be driving when returning from bar/pubs.

Use of Technology and Duckworth/Lewis Rule in Cricket

I am an ardent cricket fan and have stayed away from writing about cricket so far, as every time I see a blog written about cricket, comments get ugly soon. However, I find myself compelled to write about certain things and these arguments are based on my years of experience of watching international cricket. I want to discuss only two things here: use of technology and use of Duckworth/Lewis rule.
If one looks back at some ten or more years old cricket match, one finds that plenty of wrong judgments were made by umpires. The game could have gone either way if those decisions were not wrong as no technology was used in those days. Then we saw the dawn of new era of use of television reply in this game. Many were unhappy at the beginning as it was thought that the use of television reply undermines the authority of on-field umpires. However, it was found in just few years that it is not the case as still an umpire, not necessarily the field-umpire, has the final say. What is more important here, a fair game or someone’s authority? As I have argued earlier that a wrong decision could significantly alter the game’s course, especially when it happens with some key player. There are plenty of games/sports where a good use of technology is employed to decide the fair winner. Just to name a few, distance running, auto-racing, american football etc. Even though, the use of television reply could be used for many things, just for now I would argue its use for the close LBW calls. In cricket, just like when an umpire feels to consult the third umpire for a run-out or confirmation of whether a fielder touched the boundary, he could ask the third umpire to confirm whether the batsman hit the ball with the bat or glove in a close LBW decision. People would argue that field umpires are best equipped to know (I would argue against this also, not in this blog) if the ball was going to hit the stumps in LBW calls but many times umpires miss an obvious nick of the bat. Cricket authorities should definitely look at this. I do not want to say that technology will always give right decision but it will definitely improve upon errors made by the field umpires.
At the same time, each captain /coach should be given a challenge in each innings, just like in American football where he can challenge the umpire’s decision that was taken without any aid. This challenge would significantly help captains in saving their best players from bad umpiring judgments. I would leave it to the readers to discuss details of this suggestion. If anything else, this would significantly reduce the stress of umpires.
I also have problem with the use of D/L rule or for that matter any rule to decide the winner in the case of an unfinished game. Even though, not all the details are known about how this rule works, most cricket fans have a good idea about it. A rule uses historical data not science and doesn’t consider many uncertainties associated with cricket to decide the game’s outcome. No other game uses past statistics to decide the fate of a game as everyone knows that statistics hide more than it reveals. If a game is not completed, it should be declared ‘undecided’ or replayed from where it was stopped in similar conditions. It is seen very often that it does not become obvious who is going to win until the last ball is bowled. Even an insignificant batsman or bowler can play magically on his day and hence his past performance is irrelevant in deciding how he would play on this day.