Theres nothing 'Public' about 'Public Administration'

I am presently studying "Public Administration" (pubAd) for my Civil Service Examinations. The subject is very interesting for those who have an inclination towards management and administration (not the excel sheet variety of management ofcourse).

I figured out that the macro level theories of PubAd fit perfectly at micro level too - that is at the family administration level. Consider the spirit of Public Administration, it reads

"Authority without responsibility leads to authoritarianism; while
responsibility without authority leads to anarchy(lack of order)".

How profound is that. I tried applying this to families and found it to fit perfectly. The Indian families of yesteryears could be termed as Authoritarian to say the least. The head honcho of the family (the father) decided all important decisions and it was his nod that enabled us to go ahead with our decisions. In many cases the father even decided his offspring's career! The mother's job was confined to the kitchen and even here her authority was checked in terms of the approval for buying groceries by the head of the family. Clearly in many ways we find that fathers enjoyed real authority without much responsibility (he never actually got the groceries himself). Certainly that was an authoritarian setup with no room for equality.

The families of today, on the other hand, can be seen to tread in an entirely new route which quite untested. These families generally constitute a husband and wife of similar qualification and income. They have certainly broken all barriers of the conventional authoritarian regime that is characteristic of a typical Indian household by espousing the 'virtue' of Anarchy – a complete lack of order in the house.

It is not uncommon to hear of stories about the husband and wife having a 50-50 'work sharing agreement' back at home – the wife cooks breakfast while the husband cooks the lunch. Other 'deals' could be that each of them make breakfast every alternate day. - it follows the paradigm “I toast a slice of bread and you toast another”. I wonder whether the binding force in this relationship could be love, i would bet it is more a case of practical room sharing agreement due to space and money constraints that one has with his/her room mate.

The relationship is built on the false premise that in a family there is no need for a person to act as the final deciding authority. However the truth is that no organization can survive without a leader. Even the most flat hierarchic of the organizations such as a startup software development company needs a department head. An headless creature and a two headed demon are both expected not to survive long.

In this type of relationship there is no one in the family who calls the shots. This indecisiveness could soon eat away the air of 'equality' that once formed the basis of the relationship 'deals' or prenuptial Agreements(soon expected to arrive at the Indian Matriominal scene).

The authoritarian family setup is indeed bad. But anarchy is not the answer to authoritarianism. We have to find an alternate middle path.

Come Lets Patent

That the USA has denied reports of trying to patent yoga postures comes as a relief to many Indians around the world. Many ardent yogis who wonder how the US got the right to decide whether it would patent or not a divine exercise which has it roots deeply planted in India, fail to realise that India had to fight a legal battle in the WTO to safeguard her interest when USA patented turmeric and Basmati rice both of which are associated with India since time immemorial.

It is a known fact that America either beats or buys talent and from history we know that they have been more successful in buying out talent. Lakhs of Indian engineers, doctors and other technocrats who are serving in US holding their precious dollars close to their chest stand a testimony to this. USA dominates every nation using its borrowed talent and it becomes important to patent every piece of research to save itself from defection. The issue of evergreening the patents (continue to provide royalty forever) given to life saving drugs is only the tip of the ice berg. USA with its Super 501 and special 501 clauses threatens LDCs(least developed countries) to approve evergreening of such drugs so that these drug companies can continue to extract high profits from these poor nations. India was recently forced to amend her Intellectual property rights Act to fall in line. India had to budge as USA threatened to stop all import of Indian generic drugs which have a good market in the US.

Aren't patents unfair beyond a point? How can obsolete technology be patented beyond 20 years? How can obvious 'inventions' be patented? For instance, the mother of redundant patents, Microsoft has patented the radio button which lets you select one choice among the given alternatives. With the growing competition between the nations, it wouldn't be a surprise if the US ends up patenting our Kamasutra. You'd then be required to fix a camera in your bedroom and perform only those acts (postures) for which you have paid money. If you're found to venture into other 'unpaid' acts during your moments of intimacy, you'd be fined along with the relevant video showing your violation.

India can try her luck too by patenting Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism as they originated from our country. We could then charge people a nominal fee for practicing it. We could also get royalty from Srilanka, South East Asia as they have been 'using' our invention without paying. Those who continue to hold their dollars close to their chest could feel that this is a wonderful idea.

How insignificant is the human race?

One of the best ways to understand the relation between the earth and all that exists on it is to imagine that the earth is 46 years old. And when we write her life history, we find that we know nothing about the first seven years of her life, but the deeds of her later childhood are to be seen in the old rocks.

Most of what we recognise on earth, including all substantial life is the product of the last six years of its life(i.e 600 m.y). She flowered, in her middle age. Her continents were quite bare of its life till she was almost 42 and flowering plants did not appear until she was 45 - just a year ago. At that time the great reptiles, including the dinosaurs, came into existence and the breakup of the last supercontinent was in progress.

The dinosaurs passed away eight months ago and the early mammal replaced them. In the middle of last week, in Africa, some manlike apes developed into apelike man and at the weekend mother earth began shivering with the latest series of extremely cold ice-ages. Just over four hours have elapsed since a new species HomoSapiens came into existence and in the last hour it invented agriculture and settled down.Just about 30 minutes back the pre-harappan and early harappan cultures started developing. Just about 14 minutes back, Buddha delivered his first sermon at sarnath, and the Mauryan empire flourished 12 minutes back. Harsha gave all, whatever he had, the religious assembly at prayag about 7 minutes back, and Akbar made a pilgrimage to sufi saint Salim Chisti just about 2 minutes back. India became a proud independent nation hardly two seconds back.
Source: XIth standard Ancient india NCERT book.

Would you give me a soft loan of 1 lakh? i'll return it in one day :)

A report on earth

Prologue:
[Cartosat II of ISRO (Indian satellite research organisation) picks up weird signals while in orbit around earth. It carefully records these cryptic messages and sends it back to the ground station. After much labour, the message is deciphered and here it is for your readership]

Beep Beep. Sending a summary about the third rock from this obscure star (the earthlings call it sun). Our intuition is right! There is some form of primitive life form in this small rock earth.
Presently this habitat can be seen to be dominated by a species which is addressed to as the mankind. This species is spread all around the rock though not uniformly distributed. Since the star (sun) heats up the surface of this planet differently at different places, it can be seen that the species is differently burnt. The ones occupying the centre of the rock are burnt more than the ones living on the fringes. It is evident that the ones that are not as burnt as the ones living near the equator (centre of the planet) have a sense of superiority over the partially and the completely burnt ones.

Presently this species which has taken control of earth can be seen to convert all forms of life to its own self for no obvious reasons. But it has been quite successful in this mission – their numbers have grown close to 7 billion. The reason behind this cannot be attributed to a possible attack on our establishments near andromeda considering its technological backwardness. For example, this species has fixed an upper bound on the velocity of its vehicles at the speed of light and it considers taking a few snaps of itself from some distance from its surface a great achievement. Some sections of this species are however against such a ruthless conversion exercise. This group is also against consumption of other creatures and advocate on the dependence on green leaves and other such support mechanisms instead. Chief among the reasons for this insistence is that they argue that other forms of life have something called “emotions”. However an overwhelming majority of these creatures that preach this principle can be seen to be wearing accessories made out of skin of other thick skinned creatures that are not active after the skin is taken away from them. Perhaps these thick skinned creatures don’t have afore mentioned “emotions”.


The species is divided into two primary groups- one of them can be seen to go behind the other for an instant personal gratification. It requires a pair (one from each group) to produce another creature of the same species. About one of the groups, it can be clearly seen, the best way to reach its heart (organ of satisfaction) is through its stomach. The process is slightly complex for the other- it requires mining of rare metals, careful enrichment of their ores must precede melting and casting them into different shapes.

This mankind depends on dark rocks and fluid substance found beneath its surface to fuel its vehicles and some smoking chimneys (which are known as ‘factories’ among the earth folk). This act of mankind has upset the normal working of the system of earth. It has destroyed the protective covering of gas around the planet which is known as the ‘Atmosphere’. Some groups of this species have raised their opposition against this unscrupulous activity which could endanger its own sustenance in this planet. Some of these influential groups have been successful in preventing the setting up of smoking chimneys in some of the darker sections of the earth. It is an irony that these groups are based out of the same place on earth which causes maximum destruction to earth’s atmosphere. The reason behind using such a suicidal method of obtaining fuel is not known given the fact that sun (an infinite source of energy) is less than half a light year’s distance from this place.

About its culture, it can be seen that the whole mankind celebrates an event called the ‘new year’ by assembling at a common place and shaking itself to curious angles and gulping down fermented liquid. This ‘new year’ is celebrated on account of the earth successfully completing a lap around the sun and starting the next round. However it’s a surprise again as to how this species found the starting and ending point of an elliptical closed plane which has no beginning or end.
Mankind has been giving many paradoxes for our mission control to solve. However the Holocene phenomena could be predicted not to last for long to pose a threat to us since they are not even half as powerful and imposing as their Jurrasic counterparts that once dominated the same surface. Its genetic system is also corrupted with self destructing tendencies and hence will not cause much harm to us. However the only scope for its survival depends much on a person who presently lives in a place which hosts 1/6th of the mankind. This person is seen to be busy preparing for some examination presently.

A letter from a S/w Engineer to his mom

Dear mom,
Pranams. Did the money-order i sent reach you on time? You will be happy to know that i am not working late these days. Infact, I come home early by 10. I cannot believe that i have time to shave, eat dinner, and sleep everyday. Not everyone has the same luck as i have. My collegues are jealous of me . I know its all because of your Aashirvaad.

However, I will be put into a new assignment shortly and it will be the same old schedule of coming back home at 2 in the morning. A couple of months backm, while i was walking back home late, i accidentally stepped over two dogs that were busy mating. They didnt spare me ..ouch it hurts even now :(

Shanthi called me this evening. I know you would hate to even hear the name of your daughter-in -law who deserted me. I gave everything to her - the best home, comfort, a lot of money to spend, yet she kept finding fault with me. Its been two years since that fateful midnight when she picked up a quarrel with me for coming home late and decided to separate.

She called me up to inform that she's pregnant. Isn't that a happy news mom? I feel very happy. Your prayers have been answered. Our parampara will grow. I wish papa were alive to hear this good news.

I read a piece of news this morning which greatly upset me. A man who was always found in the company of children, used them to satisfy his sexual needs. He gave chocolates to tempt them to yield.
It's very depressing to know that such cruel exploitations exist in the world even today.

Before i forget, I've been chosen to lead the team to work on a new assignment. This is a very demanding work and i would be required to stay for days together at office. My manager personally called me into his room to announce my pay hike. I feel so happy and elated. My company is the best in recognising talent. They've recognised mine so many times. :)

This extra money that i earn will be helpful in buying my new home at 'sava- pura'. I was lucky to get the last apartment before it was taken up by someone else. Once i buy the apartment, you can come and stay with me. I hope all this will come to frution in five years.
Take care of yourself mom. You're the only one i have and you're aging. I will try to come and meet you soon.

Your son
Chintu
Project leader,
XYZ software Systems
with 500 branches in 400 countries.
No.1 in software solutions

Sexual harassment - the other side

One of the main reasons that make a professional stay in the same job is the notice period that he will have to serve if he opts to quit. Imagine sitting in your desk imagining about your next job when you're asked to work on some boring project. I believe every company has such projects exclusively reserved for those employees serving their notice period. Such projects typically require as much effort as a yukozona or a sumo wrestler would require crushing a mosquito to death. But if you're bent upon stretching it to 30 days, you could make use of an illiterate blind guy without his 2 limbs to work on the coding part.

But then every thing has its own benefits. Shouldn't we be eternal optimists? An optimist is a person who likes the donut for its smell and taste while a pessimist looks at the hole in it. The guy in American Pie, who put the innocent donut to good use, must be an opportunist.

Lets get back to the issue on hand.

There are many ways to get out of the company soon. Some of them are
1. Damaging company's resource(s).
Although this might seem to be the easiest way out, it has its own repercussions. You might get into legal issues or if you had damaged some sensitive server, you could be 'treated' by the company employed goondas.

2. Email the CEO telling him that he doesn't have the balls to fire you.
Again, a very effective method to make a quick exit. The CEO would certainly fire you to show his authority over you. But the problem is that you'd soon become the laughing stock of the entire company. The news will reach the other companies (courtesy: Free pool). The CEO will invariably point you as an example when he talks to new recruits.

3. You can be highly unproductive.
Imagine you're given a dead line tomorrow and you go to your Project Manager and coolly ask him/her to go with you for a cup of tea. Although a lot of guys have been show the door for doing it, you stand the risk of being sent to training sessions for attitude change! The chances are more if you work for big companies where employees are transported into the company using trucks. Worse still, what would you do if your PM agrees to go with you for a cup of tea ;)

Sexual harassment, therefore, seems to be the only way to a safe and quick exit. Its one method that's hassle free and time tested. Perhaps, Phaneesh murthy only wanted to join Iflex a little early. But then, what if the person whom you harass sexually co-operates! Isn't it a win-win situation anyway ?;)

Café au lait

Perhaps there is no other beverage equivalent to a hot cup of steaming madras filter coffee (pronounced in most homes here as kaapi). I haven’t tried marijuana yet, and am not planning to.

An average madrasi wakes up listening to MS subbalakshmi’s Suprabharatham and sits to read the morning daily with a hot cup of coffee by his side. It feels like your sleepy senses are hit by a base ball bat with every sip of this divine drink.

Among other uses, coffee has certain medicinal values as well. It is the best download accelerator ever invented by man. The tenth minute after drinking a cuppa coffee, you’d find yourself in Mother Nature’s lap answering her call promptly. Many people believe that this property of coffee is the reason behind naming the programming language JAVA (JAVA in Hebrew means coffee). Haven’t you heard people saying that JAVA scares the shit out of them?

Although not proven, coffee increases your will power and determination. There are references to prove that the Iron man of India, Sardar vallabhai patel, drank two cups of it every day. Patel was once arguing in the court when the news of the sudden demise of his wife reached him. He maintained his cool and continued with the case. An ordinary soul wouldn’t have been able to contain the excitement and joy and must have started celebrating thereby attracting the contempt of the court.

Instant coffee is another variety which can be used alternately for hair dyeing. Prolonged consumption of it turns your hair white. Jokes apart, we must restrict ourselves to not more than two cups of coffee per day. The ‘cups’ you get in coffee day or other such places fall under a differenet category called bathtubs. A cup is strictly any vessel that can hold not more than 250 ml of liquid and doesn’t pose a threat for anyone to trip and fall into it.

Testimonials – Let’s mean them

Online communities such as Orkut lets you find friends. You’ll love these portals more if your ‘here for:’ section says ‘women (dating)’. Most women post their photos posing sideways to the camera. Incidentally, this is the same crowd that complains that men don’t look at their eyes while speaking.

Among innumerable ways of winning a women’s heart, such as buying jewellery by burning one’s pocket to the other cost effective ways such as writing poems which involves using a lot of grey cells, Testimonials seem to be a better option. It also saves you from entering the elite club of ‘worst pick up lines’. Tell a woman that she’s got a beautiful smile and she’ll respond to you, or at least you can expect a scrap in return.

But what does one mean by a thousand watt smile? I didn’t know that you could measure the wattage of a smile. I know that a woman’s smile is powerful, but didn’t quite think it had a S.I unit.

A testimonial is expressing admiration or appreciation of a person. It has to be earned, not gifted. I find every third person a ‘genius’, every second ‘a really cool guy’, and almost everyone ‘smart, talented and lively’ - no wonder India is churning out entrepreneurs in a hurry.

Mr. ‘cool guy’, in reality could be a person who would pee in his pants when the exam results come out, and the ‘lively’ character could be someone who would brush his teeth once a week to save himself from the tiring exercise of brushing everyday. What can I say about those ‘...I am sure he’ll be a rocket scientist in life’? Let’s hope to see such bright young men as the future presidents of India like kalam.
Most of us become generous while writing somebody’s testimonial – it’s after all a bunch of words isn’t it?

Hard pressed for time

Once a person is gainfully employed, he/she has to forget about personal life for sometime. But ‘sometime’ can extend up to well over a few years, and in some cases up to the age of 58. Things that were once taken for granted during college days, such as jogging along the shores of marina, reading newspaper after lunch and falling asleep, hanging out with friends, chatting for long hours over phone have all come under ‘things to do’ in the personal reminder.

Working for long hours should not be a problem to a bachelor, but I find my seniors (who’re married) working for the same number of hours. Of course, one’s wanting to go early largely depends on his/her spouse back home. They probably find work more interesting. There’s one more problem in being a programmer...err don’t call them problems, they’re issues. Programming is like women, elusive when you go behind but when you stop caring, comes back to give you a nudge.

Weekend is a paradox; because the weeks don’t end (but hey! Do you find a school of fish carry books along?). I find myself working for some dead line or the other. Dead lines give you turbulent sleeps, perhaps that’s why they are called so. Never mind, we Indians carry a lot of burden on our shoulders at young ages, may be that’s why India’s hope for an Olympic gold lies in weight lifting.

When it’s not your day

when it’s not your day, you’ll helplessly watch a meek mouse shaking its bum against your face. I had a similar experience a few days back. Luckily no rodent was involved.

How do you feel when you find 5 minutes before a party that you do not have the right clothes to wear? Someone who is as close as the (only) husband of your mom picks up a random sample from a heap of clothes and convinces you about its aptness for the occasion. Never believe any ‘honest’ opinions of people involved in the business of convincing others. Diplomats are people who tell you such things about hell that you’ll actually look forward to making a trip there on a tourist visa.

Finally at the party, I discovered much to my dismay that I was wearing mismatched clothes. Some young cute females shook hands with me. I am sure they got reminded of the clown outside amusement parks.

As if this was not enough, I was asked to welcome people at the party. The problem in inviting people to your party is simple. You’ll have to lie. I found myself welcoming everyone with a broad smile and a “we’re so honoured with your presence” when actually I would be happy if I don’t meet a few of them again.

By the way, I lost my cell phone in the midst of all this. I was caught between searching for my indispensable hand held device and wearing a false smile in inviting people. When I found time to search for it, I searched every nook and corner. I found that the loo doesn’t have a clean commode. But my cell phone was never to be seen. I called up the service provider’s number to know what I can do best given the predicament. I had to go through this.

* Kindly press 1 for Tamil, 2 for Hindi, 3 for English
* 1 if you’re a hutch subscriber, 2 it you’re not.
* Your 10 digit number
* You’ve entered 9884125315
* press 1 to confirm
* press 2 to reject
* press 1 to know information about offices, 2 for Uk services, 3 for information of products and services, 4 for information on offices, 0 to go back ….

…And I decided that I can live without my cell phone.

P.S :I didn't know where to fit this in. Every Ganesha idol sees atleast 10,000 homes before it is bundled and gifted the 10,001 th time.

A Software engineer's life

If all the world is a stage, where is the audience?
If all of us are programmers, where are the users?

I joined a software firm on (9/05/2005) - ah finally there is a place that'll show the doj of my first job :)

We had to go through a lot of training, and I can tell you that software development is not among the most interesting things to do on earth - think of writing documentation for things you otherwise considered as paraphernalia.

Software jargons are important to software development - that's the general consensus. Usage of words such as SAP, iRR, CASE, Rational Robot etc increases your credibility in the organisation. When such words are presented to a fresher, it feels like one is hit by a tsunami without a forewarning.

Idea: We can store all these abbreviations with their expansions into a common database. Call it the Storage of Highlycomplex words in Information Technology, in short SHIT.

The Air conditioner in our training room is set to a temperature which could be used to preserve canned fish- It’s freezing. Every one hour I use the loo. A connection from all our tummies could possibly solve chennai’s water crisis.

The lecturers go on and on with their slides like one of those prime time tele-serials (the mega serials). One would find them saying the same thing after waking up from a small nap. We would almost develop snow around our nose by the end of a session because of the cold. In one of these days, infact, ice cubes were reported in the toilet after I used it.

I must mention about the chicks in here. They’re all awesome. Women of today are bold. They stand up to things, or atleast they make things stand up ;) They serve as room heaters preventing this place from turning into ice age.

When I come out of my office, the hot weather soothes me. Fellas why do you complain about chennai’s weather?

My child hood days - a retrospect

I remember the great times i had with my lil friend Rayudu (he must've grown now) . My dad was posted in Andhra in a remote town called Gudur for about six years. He decided that it was time i went to a school, though i'd ve loved to play on my mom's lap for a few more years.I was put into the only "English" medium school - the Rose flower English medium school. I was among a few privileged children that wore trousers to school- the others wore nothing.

Gudur was famous for its lemon export business. The roads would be filled with hay and lemons, and i'd pick up a few lemons on the way back home and proudly give it to my mom to be used in cooking.

As soon as i get back home, i'd run to play with my dear friend rayudu. He didn't do any schooling, because i think his parents couldn't afford it. We always preferred the road to play for it had a nice hay cushion on it. We'd jump off the sunshade on to a heap of sand, aim stones at the pigs and frighten them away, and would sincerely imitate all their actions.

For some reason, the pigs looked more contented when they were in the drainage,and we always wanted to jump into it like them. Rayudu had done it many times though, but the thought of my mom holding a cane prevented me from joining the adventure.

My mom must have found it difficult to identify her son among a group of pigs but luckily i wore a shirt. rayudu's mom could never find him. Sundays were special to us because it meant more time together playing. We used to play the whole day unmindful to the burning heat. We used to collect burnt beedis (cigarettes) because we were fascinated by the smoke that came out of nostrils when people smoked it. I wanted to know if i was capable of producing brilliant white smoke myself but i was caught in the heroic act by my mom and punished badly :( ouch

My dad got his transfer orders in 1991 to madras. I remember it well because he used to tell me about some Gulf war and show me pictures, as if i understood. My mom was jubiliant, because she was happy in taking her son to a new city which had better schools. What she did not realise was that her son would be missing his best friend.

I am sure rayudu will not read this post. He must be working in his fields or perhaps has found a job somewhere to support his family, but i miss all good times i had with him. The thoughts however will stay with me forever.

Crazy definitions

Do you need to be told what the word ‘maintenance’ means? Most of us know it is ‘maintaining’ something. If you are not that sure about the meaning you can look it up in a dictionary. This is how my Total quality management book defines it.

“Maintenance is defined as the management, control, execution and quality
assurance of activities which ensure the achievement of optimum availability and
performance of a plant in order to meet business objectives.”

That’s an assortment of a bunch of management words. If that’s not enough this is how they define ‘planning’

“ ..the process of deciding on objectives of the organisation, on
changes on these objectives, on the resource used to attain these objectives and
on the policies that are to govern the acquisition, use and disposition of these
resources.”

The following is to be read only if the reader happens to be God. No cheating!!

Note: Dear god, have mercy on me and give me a pass mark in this exam. I admit I have written it badly but I CANNOT mug up these definitions again.

The Indian Matrimonial scenario

God knows why the MNC’s are interested in finding a good alliance for our Indian bachelors and damsels. My instant messenger proudly flashed “Preeti singh 26 executive” I clicked on the link which lead me to a page containing a list of profiles proudly put up. Don’t ask my why a 21 yr old guy needs to check matrimonial websites, isn’t it better than staring the roof, especially when it’s raining outside?

All the profiles had the three words in common – fair, slim and beautiful. It’s not a mystery why India bags so many Miss Universe titles –isn’t India full of fair, slim, and beautiful women ;) but, I had a rude shock when I checked out the photos though. I found that the write ups didn’t quite match up with the photos:) –never mind if priyanka chopra can be a Miss universe why not anyone else?

Coming back err coming to the point for the first time, I found that all of them knew whom they wanted to marry, their requirements were clear cut –just that it appeared a little unacceptable to me. One of them wanted an engineer working at LA; another wanted only an MBA. A big shock awaited me when one of the profiles invited prospective grooms only from London. I was of the opinion that marriage is a union of two hearts, looks like it’s that of two professions. My neighbour said (and she exists in reality) that these were the ‘pointers’ to a good man. So from when did the pointers to a good man such as honesty, sincerity, modesty, chivalry, hardworking etc change to MBA, B.E, M.S, and PhD?

sequel to the one below.

It’s been raining quite heavily for the last two days in Chennai; I think the rain god has answered my poems ;) I was told that my post on poetry caused a lot of stir and discomfort to a few, I’d be happy if my readers appreciate the humour in my posts. If you don’t find it funny though, you are allowed to use at your discretion the Alt+F4 keys (it might not work if you’re running a win98, so try Ctrl, Alt, Del).

Poetry - let me teach you.

For some strange reason, I am interested in poetry these days. Among other things, Men should learn cooking and poetry - Kitchen is the shortest way to bedroom and I think poetry comes next. I am aware that the art of writing poems is confined to people who would look at an apple and say

A worm in an apple might seem bad
But half a worm in an apple is really sad!

The odds were against me when I decided to become a poet; like everyone else I would grab the apple and devour it when I see it. Poetry would be the last thing to come to my mind.
I checked out websites that encourage young ‘poets’. This is what a buff had written about love

I love you with a permanence
That endures the passing years.
I love you with a joyfulness
That subdues all doubts and fears.
I love you with an honesty
That was born within my heart.
I love you with the calm belief
...

I badly need the rules to write a poem. I thought the last word of each line must rhyme with the pervious one, but since that lousy thing had qualified, I propose the following as my poem.

FOR i = 1 TO n
FOR k = i TO n
IF (a(i) > a(k)) THEN SWAP a(i), a(k)
NEXT k

FOR j = 1 TO n
PRINT a(j)
NEXT j

Next i

The above one has three words per line, it’s got a perfect meaning to convey (sorts numbers). It’s well structured. Since I’ve graduated to the status of an established poet, here’s my advice to the budding ones.

1. Write an essay about anything you feel like.
2. Transfer it to your computer.
3. Press the enter key at every third or fourth word.
4. You have a good poem.
5. Upload it to poetry.com and call yourself a poet.

40+

Are you 40 yrs or older? Don’t read this post, you may not like it. Why are 40+ oldies so rigid in their thinking? They’ve a set regime in life which will NOT be broken for any reason. The following is how a 40+ will handle different situations.


Student: Madam, I got the print out. It looks neat.
40+: No, write it into an observation, draw figures, get my signature and I will affix the wax seal.

Shopkeeper: …but sir, this computer is very fast and costs you slightly more than what you ask for.
40+: No. Give me X486 with a black n white monitor and a dot matrix printer. You cannot cheat me.

Wife: Honey I am feeling romantic.
40+: Hey! How come? It’s not night yet.

Godly woes

“Alas I am here. Wake up; your prayers have been answered. I am here not just to honour your prayers, but also to tell you what I feel about my devotees who go overboard at times. I chose you because you are the only rational soul I could find.

Firstly, why on earth do people swarm on Saturdays to see me? I might not have a family, but I need the weekends for myself. How could Saturday, which comes every week on a Christian calendar, be of any relevance to a Hindu like me? Why cant people regulate themselves? It doesn’t make sense to block the traffic and cause inconvenience to others.


Who spread the malicious rumour that I like butter? I detest it. I hate people applying a big ball of butter on my mouth especially when the butter smells cheap. Most of it is anyway taken away by the priests, and I am left with a thin layer of butter around my mouth, which only invites flies and mosquitoes. I hate to see my already swollen mouth grow further in size with mosquito bites.

...and why do my followers adorn me with vada mala? No one, not even God, can gobble up more than a dozen vadas, however tasty they are. Since I am old now, I have to worry about Gastro problems. Kindly ask men to regulate themselves- be it devotion, love, work or any other activity for moderation is the mantra for happy life."

As told by Jai Veer Hanuman in my dreams.

Swami Vivekananda's Words of Wisdom

• Mere external appearance or a person’s speech or mannerisms are only fringes of one’s personality.
• Don’t become happy with pleasurable events, and miserable with adverse circumstances.
• Go on doing good, thinking holy thoughts continuously, which is the only way to suppress base impressions.
• The personality of a man is two-thirds while his intellect, and his words are but one-third.
• Pleasure is not the Goal of man, but knowledge.
• Don’t desire, for what you desire you get, and with it comes terrible bondage.
• Each time we suppress hatred, or a feeling of anger. It is so much good energy stored up in our favour; that piece of energy will be converted into higher powers.
• Fight on bravely! Life is short! Give it up to a great cause.
• When we are alone responsible, then we shall rise to our highest and best.
• He, who always speculates as to what awaits him in future, accomplishes nothing whatsoever.
• The man who works through freedom and love for work cares nothing for results.
• We shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves; the sun takes up water from the ocean, to return it in showers.
• Unselfishness will bring success; the degree of unselfishness marks the degree of success everywhere.
• Feel, my children feel; feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad.
• Cowards never win victories.
• Weak men, when they lose everything and feel themselves weak, try all sorts of uncanny methods of making money, and come to astrology.
• When you came to this world, the world rejoiced and you cried; now live your life doing such acts that when you leave this world, the world will cry for you and you will leave it laughing.
• The great benefit in this life is struggle. If there is any road to Heaven, it is through Hell.
• Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life -think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea.
• Regular breathing puts the body in a harmonious condition; it improves your concentration.
• When you have acquired the feeling of non-attachment, there will then be neither good nor evil to you. It is only selfishness that causes the difference between good and evil.
  --------- Swami Vivekananda

Graphs

How do you feel when your project reviewer listens to your lecture for half-an hour and says “Yawn..So where are the graphs to prove it?” Most of them are unmindful of the amount of hard-work that had gone into your project. They certainly don’t understand that not all projects need graphs.

ALL THEY NEED IS SOME SQUIGGLY CURVES WITH X AND Y AXES.

Such people care more for the letter than for the spirit of rules n regulations. I am not going to crib about it anyway. If all they want is a graph, so be it. I have presented some readymade graphs that can be conveniently added to your project – you don’t need to pay royalty to me. ;)




And don’t forget to add some nice symbols like dy/dx or O(n logn).Such things add to the ‘value’ of your project!