A Walk to Remember

It was a Sunday evening. After a fantastic start to the day with a bowl of chocolate ice cream, I was in high energy state. I gave a call to Mahesh. Thought of calling him for a walk and in turn was invited to taste his two experiments which were vegetables with rasam powder and mangoes with milk. He lives with his cousin Kiran, have to mention that Mahesh and Kiran are very good singers or rather I call them hummers. Kiran and Mahesh came near my apartment to pick me up and on our way back home there was a chemical reaction in Kiran’s brain. He asked Mahesh if he wished to go to some nice place and for a wonder our introvert submissive replied with a positive YES! Then few minutes later we were at the red river. This river divides North Dakota and Minnesota states. We took a walk along the river, with few humming from our great singers and some jokes in havyak. I can’t stop mentioning that I am a multi lingual person as I had no difficulty in following their language. It was third day in Fargo for Mahesh and he had a brand new cell phone in his hand and no prize for guessing, yes he clicked everything which came his way including the damaged road, swamp, and our beautiful faces. We found a comfortable place to sit on the riverside. All thanks to their heights both the guys had the privilege to touch the water with their feet as we sat on the wooden plank which is used for fishing. After few minutes, there was a dark cloud floating over us and it burst into rain drops. We got soaked in the water with a cool breeze in our hair. I enjoyed those moments to the fullest and so did Kiran, but Mahesh only shivered. Finally clouds showed some mercy on Mahesh and they passed left us to let the sun shine on us again. We saw a rainbow in the sky, again no prize for guessing that we captured these in the brand new cell. Some more minutes over the plank and we were on our way back to the place where the car was parked. There was a chemical reaction again but this time it was happening inside the brain which belonged to Mahesh. He chose a different path over the grass to get back instead of the road that we used while coming. Before we covered half the distance, Mahesh was frustrated as his slippers were getting heavy with the soil getting accumulated on his slippers. Then we got back to the road instead of the grass path and all along the way people were performing rock and roll dance to clean their slippers. Our very great Mahesh got back to the river as well to clean his pair of slippers. Our next spot was dairy queen to enjoy the delicious ice creams. We all gulped our favorite flavored ones and left from there heading back to home where some experimental results just awaited my arrival. Mahesh and I had a fuzz ball match where I lost royally and still remained happy. Then I tasted “circular” poori made my Mahesh, Chole made by kiran, sambar and mango accident from Mahesh. All were good and the song “Yeh zindgi usi ki hai “ in Shreya Ghoshal’s voice acted like a dessert of our dinner. A perfect day came to an end, which will remain as one of my best days in US.

My hot chocolate !!

After almost a month I was back to class today. Not a very good time to be in class. It was from 3.15 to 5.30 pm. The thought of sitting in class for 2 long hours was by itself scary. I was in library from morning 10 going through some research papers and chatting with friends online. I dint have my lunch as well , called one of my friend for coffee but even he turned down the invite. I slept for some time and then grabbed a cup of hot chocolate. It was chill and cloudy and hence hot chocolate was like the apt thing for that moment. I entered the class and occupied a seat. In five minutes around 7 students were accumulated in the class. When the clock was showing 3.15 Professor Ubhaya entered. The course was Algorithm Analysis. This professor is very thin and I was very curious to know how he teaches like most of them in the class. Introduction to the subject went on well. I was having nice time as I had the company of my hot chocolate along with time and space complexity. I could feel the chocolate entering my throat, passing through my food pipe and landing in my stomach. Every sip of the chocolate was felt and enjoyed and so was the lecture. Every bit of what professor was explaining was easily grasped by my brain and enjoyed. Things went on very smooth until 4.30 and then I started feeling uneasy in the class. I felt my professor was not prepared for the class. After 4.30 whatever he spoke was not making much sense for me. I felt he was randomly speaking and it was more like he was speaking in a pseudo language. Just few minutes prior to that he had told something about pseudo code as well. He had to leave at 5 as he had some work. I strongly felt that after 4.30 even he was not happy in the class, he was also thinking about the place where he had to go after 5.
I was very disturbed after 4.30 and the reason was I had gulped my hot chocolate and I found my cup empty. This was the main reason for my restlessness and the coincidence was professor had brought a tumbler of water when he entered the class. Even that was empty at 4.30: p after 4.30 everything went off track because my hot chocolate, his tumbler of water and the topics for which he was prepared everything came to an end !!

Oye !!

I just realized that I believe in short and sweet happenings in my life. I enjoy them at that moment before they are lost forever. How many of us are struggling to make a better tomorrow. We sacrifice today so that we can enjoy tomorrow. How many precious moments have we already lost just because we were so busy in thinking and planning for tomorrow that we ignored the present small things which could have made us content.
Suddenly if you realize that you can never see tomorrow, because the world will end tomorrow. Then what would happen. Simple most of us will still make sad face and be anxious that we put so much of effort to make a better tomorrow. Even at that point we might not realize that this is our last opportunity to enjoy, smile and be happy. This is general tendency of people.
One of my friends always used to tell me that I only live for the current day. I never think of tomorrow. I never plan for the coming days. And I say there is no necessity to plan for tomorrow. You have to be dynamic. You make yourself very flexible that irrespective of the situation which might come in future you will be capable enough to handle them and still manage to remain happy. This friend of mine loves planning but in the process he fails to enjoy the present day.
Enjoy the small things like watch movies , go to pub , get wet in rain, eat loads of ice cream, eat junk food, scream , sing , dance , waste time, just lie down and do nothing, tell your dear ones how much you love them , stop creating boundaries between you and the rest of the world, do things which you want to do , start living life for yourself , start dreaming , drive your favorite car , go for fishing, go camping , go trekking , go shopping , go visit your dream destinations. Unlock your wild imaginations. Do everything which you want to. Stop telling yourself that today if I restrict myself tomorrow I can do better things. No one has seen what tomorrow is like. But you know how the present looks like. Live it!!
Oye is a movie which I recently saw. I found so many similarities between the lead actor and myself, which I felt like writing in this blog.
There is a small section for all those who are in love and who don’t want to be in love: Love is a special feeling. It is a collection of countless short and sweet memories and moments. If you are already in love then do not fail to spot any of these small moments. If you are running away from love then stop as soon as possible. It’s amazing to realize how you can make other person happy. Every person has this capability of loving another person and making that person feel special and wanted. Do not waste this characteristic which is given by god to everyone. I keep telling a person not to worry too much and enjoy the current moments. Hopefully he realizes it before many moments are lost.

Manipulative / Crazy System

I was filled with loads of dreams of higher studies…..
I stepped in to a bank with no influence, no relatives in bank. Gathered all information and methods to apply for a loan after waiting for long time. I filled in all the forms and submitted; my application was placed in some column of a table and completely forgotten about. Then after few days when I went back to the bank the loan manger had changed and this person was not only new to the bank he was new to the loan procedure as well. When I enquired he was unaware of all rules related to education loan and he was the loan section manager. Yes it is kind of funny. He asked me to talk to the assistants over there. Sometimes it’s easier to meet VIPs but it’s difficult to talk to this assistants. They behave like they are loaded with tasks and they are very productive and busy. I don’t see a single person enjoying his work. Everybody is performing the tasks as if it is a penalty for some sin that they have committed for.
Customers are gods that is what I have been taught in my professional life but here none of the customers were treated like one. God like was far, they were not even treated like normal human beings with some due respect. Unless you had loads of money and there was a potential chance for the bank to gain an FD from you they really never cared for customers. These guys had rewritten their mantra “Customers are god “conditions apply * : p
I had my patience being tested which I lack. I had to wait for hours to just ask one simple question from these assistants. And after waiting for long hours when I shot questions I was shot back with rude replies and sometimes just blank face (clearly ignored). Somehow I managed to fill the application form second time and submitted it to the new manager. This application went to the head of that branch for approval. She opened my dad’s account and checked his balance. He is retired and hardly has any transactions. This was the reason to reject my application. Nowhere in the rules was it stated that my dad should have a specified number of transactions in his account. This rule does not exist it was created on the fly. I requested the head to look into my mother’s account and she had good number of transactions and a decent amount of balance in her account. But this was clearly ignored by this head. Yes this is India still dad’s account is important not mother’s. In spite of mentioning that the property which I will be using for loan is in my mother’s name and she will be the nominee they had to bring in my father’s account into picture and create a silly rule to reject the application. Even after this I told the head I will transfer all the money from mother’s account to father’s account and we will have an FD made as well. She never agreed on anything. I was for the first time disappointed that none of my certificates and marks was of any use. It was just bank balance which actually matter. I never gave p tried in one more bank but nothing worked. My mother and I kept trying in this first bank to talk to the manager and convince her, she never entertained us. Every time her rules altered. Once it was my father’s account transaction, and once it was that the property was located far from the bank and next it was that we do not live in that house. Every time her rules and its version changed. Whereas the actual bank rule does not state any of these things. The property can be anywhere but has to be in the same city where the bank is located. There is no rule that the person has to live in that house. It only matters if the property legally belongs to the person whose name is been mentioned in the application form. The attitude of the bank people sucks to the core. They are not seated to serve people. They are placed over there to serve themselves, their friends and family members. They don’t realize the importance of their role; they have a wonderful chance of realizing student’s dreams. They have a beautiful job in their hand. But they fail to realize it. Drowned in selfishness and desire to make more money they manipulate the system to match their needs.
Loan came to a standstill but god is great I got assistantship hence I was not anymore in need of loan. But my VISA interview required me to show some hard cash in my account. Hence I did direct cash deposit to my account. The money was supposed to appear in the account the next day but it did not. I went to the bank to check why it was not appearing. There was a big drama to be enacted by the staff over there. The lady seated in the cash counter never answered. Every time I asked she told she did not know the reason but she has done whatever she was supposed to. The reason she gave me was that the system is still processing. And she was talking to a software engineer. I spoke to every possible person to ask why the amount was not appearing in my account and no one had an answer, instead they all had big red face and rude words for me. I moved from one counter to another based on their instructions. Each counter person blamed the other and redirected me to the next counter. Finally working hours were over and after that there were two continuous holidays and day after that was my VISA interview. I was not ready to leave the bank as it was mandatory for me to have that amount appear in my account. The bank failed to give loan to me and now it was refusing to show my money in my very own account. I was angry, frustrated and sad. I still ran from one place to another kept asking them to recheck and finally the problem was with the lady in the deposit counter. This lady who told system was still processing had forgotten to feed the data into the system. By mistake she had placed it in the drawer and forgotten. After she fed the data into the system it appeared immediately in my account and I left the bank. This was the worst experience that I have ever come across. My heart was beating so loud that day. I wanted to scream at everyone and tell them that they were not fit to work. None of them enjoyed their work, none of them looked serious. On that day they were literally playing with my future. Mistakes do happen but these people lacked every single attribute required to be in that job. Why are people like this? What is missing which makes them not realize the importance of their job? Who can explain them that they have a beautiful job to serve people, to help people and not to make faces at customers and shout at them.
I am seriously against this system. I feel online banking is much better. Let the software handle everything. At least it will not make faces and give rude answers. It will not make me wait for hours and chat with its neighbor program asking if it has bought any new jewellery or dress. It will not ask if I knew some relative in the bank. It will not create rules on fly and act selfish. It will just process my data, check for all constraints and do the transaction. What’s the whole point in having humans do the job when they lack all characteristics of human? Machines and software can do the same job faster and in efficient way.

Juggle with emotions !

Man is very complicated biologically. His composition is still 100% not understood. Reasons why certain things happen in certain way in human body is still unresolved.
His emotional configuration on the other hand is much more complex. He is known for his unpredictable behavior. Again and again he proves that his actions and behavior can never be judged. Sometimes I wonder what Artificial Intelligence is trying to achieve. AI is my subject of interest and targets on making the computer as smart and as intelligent as human being. Humans themselves fail to predict how they might react to some situations. For this reason AI was redefined as making computers rational not human like as humans are not rational always.
Two good people unaware of each other came in contact because of me for some common goal. There was a verbal commitment made between these two on the common goal. But due to unpredictable situation one of the people broke the commitment. The action was very much valid when you look at it from his perspective. The situation which arouse was least expected and occurred after the commitment was made. I was informed about this and I expected the other person to take it calmly and understand the situation. I predicted a wrong behavior. The second person took this very critically and blamed me as well. After few days things have reassured. But I still wonder why my prediction went wrong. Where was the mistake? Was it my mistake that I was un related to the commitment hence I dint see the matter as a dent for the second person. Was it the mistake of the person who broke the commitment due to some situation? Was it his responsibly to keep up his words irrespective of the situation. Or was it the mistakes of the second person who dint try to think this kind of situation can occur occasionally.
Or is it just human tendency to complicate simple things?
There was some bitterness between two intimate friends. Both wanted to talk to each other from long time. But when they spoke one among the two looked clumsy which made the other person upset. Hence the two had a small clash. The fight was resolved in no time. But after a day passed, the clumsy person named the upset person’s behavior as an act. Some things are crystal clear. The excitement that was there in a person was broken down by the other and it was obvious for that person to be upset. How can this get tagged as an act.
A person is always immersed in negative thoughts like what if he loses the job very next day, every other person who interacts with him wants to cheat him, and every other person in his life fails to understand him. He lacks positive thinking attitude. When someone tries to tell him to turn positive he hates that person as well.
I wonder why humans are so complicated. Sometimes they fail to catch others emotions, sometimes they fail to respond back and sometimes they predict wrong behaviors. My future research has something to do with human psychology. Hoping to find some answers.