A Mouse in the Big House

It was a fine Sunday afternoon, suddenly the mobile rang. Oops, it is kid’s Master’s Guide. The kid, who is the central character in this post, was a Master’s Student in an Indian Institute of some repute, and his guide (will be called ‘Professor’ henceforth) during that tenure was even more reputed. Kid had an awe (to be honest, fear at times) for him, and used to prepare himself very carefully before every meeting with Professor. Kid has joined a company after finishing his degree in this Institute, and started thinking himself not a kid anymore. However, whenever Professor calls or mails him, he becomes kid again. Forget it, the conversation went like this:
“Hello kid, are you in town? I mean in Bangalore?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you seeing your mail?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I have sent you some corrections on the presentation of our paper; I was expecting a reply from you.”
“Yes, sir, I sent the corrected file almost immediately after it.”
“But I didn’t get anything.”
“Well, then I’ll send it once more.”
“Yes, please do that. And have you asked your company about your travel for presenting the paper?”
“No, sir, I’m not very hopeful about them sanctioning it. But I’ll give a try.”
“Ok, thanks.”
Phew, Kid was sweating in the cool of Bangalore. The following day, there was a meeting in his office with the director of the organization where Kid works now. This is the first time Kid is getting exposed to the big leaders of the organization, and he had no idea about how the director is. However, he liked his speech and pleasing personality. He welcomed the freshers to the company and shared his lunch with them. Kid thought, how about presenting his idea to this person, and so he did. Director told, “Ok, send me the details of your paper and conference and we will see.” Kid was expecting a reply with lots of careful words which finally exposes the tight budget and a doubt about the applicability of his results for the growth and profit of the organization, hence a reject. But something different happened, director gave a green signal! Well, well, Kid could see his two wings growing which will fly him to Athens, the venue for the Third International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools, 2008. A hundred drums started beating in his heart. Time was limited, he has to get a visa, and its formalities are quite hazardous, but finally beating all odds, he made it. The visa was stamped on his passport, and how could he not kiss it? Kid couldn’t believe the once ordinary village boy can travel all the way to Greece, not only to present his paper, but to show up the face of Indian research to the people who are established and recognized in the field. He started preparing for the presentation and could already see the faces of the curious questioners on the wall in front of which he used to practice his talk.

Finally the day came to fly off. He joined his Professor in the same flight sometime past midnight in Bengaluru International Airport. Kid heard that international flights have nice flight attendants, oh, now he got a chance to experience it in first person (see the Polish attendant). The journey was long and had a stop in Dubai before Athens. In Dubai, it was about 8 hours before the next flight, and the WiFi was available. Professor wasn’t visible nearby, so Kid took out his laptop and sent some emails to home, as to how he’s progressing. Mobiles won’t work, so this was the only way to communicate. Luckily, he got a Greek national in the lounge who could tell him about how to go about in the city of Athens and what are must-see’s. The flight from Dubai to Athens was in the morning and was comfortable. Professor took a cab and dropped him in the hotel, where Kid got accommodation as part of his student travel allowance (this covered the registration and staying cost and is provided by the conference committee. Kid had no tension). Dilofo (Hotel Les Amis was here where Kid was staying) is a place which is a bit remote from the conference venue (Hotel Amarilia), and is less cosmopolitan. Kid had communication problem since most of the shopkeepers in Dilofo had hard time speaking English, and the food was traditionally Greek. However, he liked the food, souvlaki and kleftiko are the two he can remember. It was also the cheap solution with not more than 3 Euros each.

The first day in the conference was the workshop named GameComm, which he wasn’t registered for, the actual conference starts from the following day. So, Kid used this day for roaming around the city, and can you guess, whom he accompanied? You are right, the Professor! Athens has a variety of transport, buses are less and infrequent, apart from this, there are metro and tram. But the ticket for all of them are same. You could buy one daily ticket for few Euros and get a day of travel in any media. So, that's what they did, bought one ticket and traveled to the center of the city. The Acropolis was the primary target. With it, they got Athens University, Museum and Center of Arts for free. The Acropolis is an ancient city situated at the top of a hill, and so needs a light trek. Professor was panting to climb it, however, he was much fit than anybody of his age. They saw the Parthenon (snap below), Heros Atticus Odium, Erechtheum (photo on right) and other things in the city of Acropolis, had lunch together and while coming back to the hotel after the tour of the day, Kid was trying to link the historical places of India with theirs. It seemed to him, they are really not much different, it’s only the mind that matters, and minds like Socrates, Plato or Aristotle made this place different. Water in Greek is “Nero”, how much different is it from “Neeru” in Kannada? We can't be much different, all of us started from the same cell. However, night life in Greece is simply too much, trade of sex is legal, and people do enjoy it to its fullest. This is something Kid couldn’t find any resemblance with.

The next morning was his presentation day, time was 10 am. However, morning starts quite late in Athens, probably because the eastern side of the city has some mountains which cover the sun till 8 am local time. Kid’s was the last presentation in the first session of the conference. The chairperson announced his name and he came to the dais and presented it without much glance to the audience. Because, there were supposed to be certain heavyweights, viz. Eitan Altman, John Tsitsiklis, Tijani Chahed, Nahum Shimkin, Stavros Toumpis and more, Kid doesn’t know if they were there, at least his talk went on smoothly and few questions were asked. A big appreciation came from Tijani and Stavros, they are professors in France and Greece and were in organizing chair of this conference. For a moment, he felt all his efforts to travel this far and representing the Institute at a global forum got its true meaning. Kid always dreamt of this day.

The lunch was extraordinary, meanwhile Kid got introduced to few more kids who also had a paper or two there, and became friends. He can remember George, a Greek, and Jonatha, an Italian, since they spent most of the time together. George helped all who sat with him in same table for the lunch or dinner by communicating with the people who served, so that nobody can question about the hospitality of Greece, and Kid has no doubt about it. There were few more Indian participants, however, they were representing either some US or European Institutes, same was the case with Masood, a Pakistani national, who represented Paris Telecom. Kid was the only representative from the subcontinent. Interaction with Masood was quite remarkable for Kid, as he never had this previlege before. Kid never understood why people divide among the people of these two nations, and what difference does he have from anybody anywhere in India. Even though they were careful interacting initially, but ended up being good friends.

The following day started with a keynote speech by John Tsitsiklis. Kid had seen him while he visited their Institute few months back, and found him the same there too. The greatest teachers are those who can adjust his/her deliverables to any kind of audience, and sitting in his talk, one can never feel bored. Realizing the feeling how the speech hits the audience is the quality of a good teacher. John speaks so nicely. That’s why Kid envied the MIT folks who attend his lecture almost everyday. There were few more lectures of that rank, but in simplicity and depth, none compared him. The rest of the conference was an obvious extension of this sequence. They had a banquet dinner, in a true European style, with a pianist sitting and playing in a slow tune. The food and drinks were also selected carefully so as to cater to all kinds of people. What more can a student ask for from the organizers?

He stayed there for one more day, and left before the conference concluded. He doesn’t know how much the knowledge he got for the company to be useful, but certainly knows, if there is something urgently needed for the world in this moment, is ‘thought’. The people gathered there had the single goal, the exchange of thoughts. Hard work and making thoughts transform into reality is an obvious consequence. It’s the thoughts that make all the difference!

Thanks to the readers who had the patience to go through this story. A small note to conclude with. All characters were fictitious and any resemblance of it with any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental !!

Life's Like This

Can you remember the song 'complicated' by Avril Lavigne? Starts with the line that I put as title. I don't claim that's a nice title, but when I think that I'm writing on this blog after a year-long lay off, I thought about putting some sort of summary of the experiences I had in this long year. I'm indebted to the people who introduced me to this habit of writing blogs, and I must agree that this is a nice way of expressing one's thoughts.

When I look back 1 year in the past, when I wrote my last entry in this blog, how much different I was. I was a student in IISc, a place I can never forget. Still today, I look at my company id card and try to find that "student at IISc" me in the photo (the photo was taken before joining the company, hence ...). The world at IISc was quite different, unrealistic at times, like white gaussian assumption for any noise (for those who are new to this term, white gaussian is the simplest of all noises and so amenable to analysis), we had no chance to get a feeling of the real outside world, people within the campus were more than obedient and helpful. Maybe it felt more so, since I hardly used to step out of the campus during those days. Apart from academics, all facilities were too great to my eyes. The institute and its professors asked us to be precise and detailed even if our area of study is not too large.

Things changed quite a lot after leaving the institute. We already were brainwashed, so attitude was difficult to match with other things. But this was interaction with real world, and that is where everything boils down to. I remember the first month of relocation to the newly found apartment, rent so high that I needed to borrow money from home (a sheer disrespect, after all why job if you can't be self-dependent!), cooking initially with barest minimum indredients and inexperienced two fellas making a junk broth or a sabzee that we could hardly eat. After all, it was quite tiring to come back from office and cook, we always ascribed our inablity of cooking to this particular event.

Luckily we got a cook after one month, and a kind-hearted neighbor, whose refrigerator we can use. God is good, the first month's salary came, and we were overjoyed. This was also a nice experience, which was new to my life. Well, we declared that the real world is also not that bad !!

Now comes the office, first time entry to an office like Cisco's is memorable for everyone. Shining, glittering, put any number of adjectives, beautiful HR folks welcomed us with plenty of colgate smile, and we were assigned to the teams and got introduced to them. I consider myself lucky that my first manager told the realities about the industry life. One suggestion I still follow: "Do your assigned work without being attached to it", a harsh truth, but yes, true. I was surprised to see the nicely maintained labs with million dollar routers and switches, even the workplace is neatly maintained. So neatly that if you spill a drop of tea at the tea station, at least 4 people will rush to the place as if some accident has happened and will shine the stained floor until you see your reflection in it. I started 'learning' how things work in industry and how they feel about the research community as a whole. I started observing both sides of the coin. I should acknowledge Cisco for supporting my travel to Athens for presenting my paper with Prof. Kumar, this event I can never forget, and will mention the details of that in a separate post.

All were going right in this first quarter, company's income was good and we were happy with the amenities. Then from somewhere this demon called recession turned up. How he came, what he wants, I don't know, but this demon swallowed lots of jobs in US and other nations. Thank God, India wasn't that affected till now, and that is how we survived.

The city of Bangalore has at least two facets, I have seen in the northern part, where IISc is located, the atmosphere is quiet, cool, people get enough time to think, concentrate and work. On the other hand, the eastern part, which is the location of most of the IT companies, has a different flavor, this flavor is the characteristic of any modern city. People have large difference in work, lifestyle, earnings, which reflects in the way they behave. I have seen certain people shopping in nice shopping malls don't bother shouting at the poor shopkeeper boy. Certain people can't quench their thirst until the waterbottle is made of a certain multinational brand. On the other side, certain people strive to put hand to mouth. Well, all these are part of life and that is how I touched the 'real life', and it touched me.

In essence, I found this life to be similar to a 'Tabla' playing, it lives on beats, and missing the rhythm will throw you out of the race. While the life in IISc was like playing a 'Sarangi', the quiet pathos was mesmerizing and the melody replaced the rhythm.