Either yoy know or you dont

There is no middle way...Either you know something, or you do not.

And if you do not, you better learn it, soon. Also, one should superimpose once knowedge into utility and action, no other way around.

Part of my knyaana maarga interpretation.

All that has changed_Is there a dearth of problem statements?

one often has to come up with innovation idea sparks that will benefit mankind in general. It may be a tool that assists in day to day chores or a simple revelation that can aid in better decision making. But, after the long hours of research that sits on a research question, hypotheses setting string of assumptions, I often get to ask myself before the others do - "Dont I already know this?". Sleeping at the right time and for a sufficient time will lead to better well-being and longer life. Keeping yourself hydrated every few hours is good for body immune system. Staring at the laptop for long hours strains the eyes and affects the physiological system cycle over time. We do know that, or could prove some systematic quantitative results. But what after that. Do we heed to research findings. Will we mend our ways, if we are thrown up with life improving facts? Is the smoker still going to smoke knowing its is decreasing his life expectancy in an exponential rate? One of the things I regularly practice while coming up with ideas, is asking: "What do I need in life? What are the things I feel would be a life-saver for me?" At least in my case, this trivia is a good starting point and helps greatly in narrowing down options for structuring the solutions approach. Going through the hierarchy of needs and requirements of an individual, I discovered that there are fundamentally a few things that really matter which branch out subsequently in different ways for different ways. What are these needs, have these changed over time? How well-off are we in these aspects compared to yesteryear humans. We can think about such things. Food, moderate and regular social exposure, shelter, travel may be a few things I can come up with right now. Moving back to the primary discussion point of what do we need, how to make things easier for current generation, what are we missing that the previous guys had in plenty? How can my discoveries be better than just suggestions? For this, we may need to go into exploring the differences between the older and newer generation. This is a commonplace grand-mom favoured topic which never seems to wean in discussion tables of almost all households. But a very rich source of problem statements may lie right here. What all do I(any person) know right now that I am doing has obvious scope for rectification may be some of the following neo-life characteristics: I sleep at odd times. I have fleeting and variant eating patterns. I stare at mobile-laptops for a longer time. I do not work out regularly. I eat junk food regularly. I do not take care of my skin, stomach, hair, limbs in obvious ways which I have been taught from childhood. I am attached to virtual entertainment media in such a way that my association with what is life, how should I behave, how should I life, how do I perceive others should behave are strongly influenced by the roles played by actors who try to mimic what I (the generic social individual) do. These may be some points which strongly differentiate the artificial complications we may have unknowingly superimposed into our lives while the older guys were in fact chilling and having a good time with no TVs, no inflation, more time for retrospection and doing the basic things of eat, sleep and talk. One may counter saying that there were other problems during those times which have been addressed with technology. Agreed, technology has made things easier certainly. My focus here is to search for problem statements and hence I screen out the comparing old versus new features which project what we are better off with, for brevity. How does one structure a problem statement that addresses problems that are directly or indirectly related to the current life style? What do we have, what do we need? What are the impacts of this lifestyle? These are points, which may lead one to fruitful research questions in some narrow aspect that may lead to one of the many roots of lifestyle impact paradigm. At least in health care, I do not have to say that almost all problems have been addressed by researchers and the field is mature. There is and will always be newer things to work on as people cease to stop once a while in their routine life to retrospect on the obvious things they ought to do but seem to have no time to do it to the busyness of their comfortable existence.

The love for research - Part A: Why a PhD

Fate is a strange thing. One wishes to do something and fate conspires in setting up situations enabling oneself to fulfill these wishes, metaphorizing a war till the last enemy soldier is killed. I like to read. I like to find out things. I like to contribute to literature. But most of all, I like to profess. Am I capable for the jobs and the path, I keep asking myself. That is fine, as in this long journey, even the best of the best seem to have treaded similar paths where they ask themself often: "Is it worth it, leaving: my mother country far away, a plush corporate job with cumulative savings, an early family life kick-off and many other things. But alas, it is sacrifice my friend. The burning coal and the tirelessly working bellows will yield the best of metal castings. The penance for the cause of science, will pay-off. And admit it, it is all for your love. For your love for research and science. Science can get addicting and the perennial effort to learn improves you intellectually much beyond your expectations. And, this is a continuous process. The optimistic learner is better than an intellectual fool with terrific scientific instincts but no discipline of research.

Missing the important things in life

Times go by, like the wind breeze touching across your cheeks and sending a chill in the rim of your outer ear in a fine summer evening. Well, you were 8 and you were small. You could run around the garden all evenings and meet friends and play cricket till your legs got tired. You became 15 and the 'reality' of life dawns upon you. You want to become significant in the world of things. In the world of entities, you want to be known, be called as the just, the enduring and occupy a special place. You enter the education age. The 16-25 when you constantly studying, promising yourself that you will grow up one day. You will grow up to own a car, grow up to buy your parents tickets to a world tour. Grow up and make yourself secure. Make yourself stable and worthy of getting married. You then come near the 30s. So fast... You were just 8 yesterday!!! What is this life for? You ask. Is it to get married, to have kids, to roam places every once a year when you can afford a vacation amidst the tooth-knitting work that never ends? There is so much motivation , so much of positivity to perform, so much of zeal to contribute to this world... But what has anyone ever done to the betterment of this universe. All the mankind, we think every minutes of our work, counts. Either for the betterment of a company, or for a sub-section of the society; or at least for the accumulation of personal property.But in the deepest of your heart, you know. You know that it is all a game. It is a game where you play fair, you act diligent and then you pass on the baton. So, what is the takeaway of all this gibberish reminiscience. Have I improved over time. Was the game well played. Well, that is an easy one to answer. Let me do it for you. Did you have fun all along, that is the question you need to ask. We, humans, have traversed the short period of earth time and very long period of mankind from burning the first stick to create fire to creating our own concrete hyper-jungles. As all big management gurus keep telling once a while, also be a spectator, not only a completely immersed hyper-active player in the various games that you are part of in the sequence of life. You are an employer of the company, contribute to eat; to earn your bread. Be motivated to give your best, but don;t burn yourself. The more you place yourself in the hotseat, the more you are burning yourself. And finally, in your yonder years, once a tiny smirk will come up your face when you realize the answer to the rhetoric -" Was it all worth it??" So now, coming back to the topic of the post, missing the important things in life... Many a times, we take decision. We do a lot of sacrifice. We push ourselves to the best of our capabilities. The questions, often keeps posing in our minds are: 'Is it worth it', 'Am I worth it', 'Can I do it', 'What it is meaning of whatever I do' and 'Is this the best thing for me'. Well, I have a steady state response for it, my friend. Remember it, and remember it well. For all those things you have forgone, for the troubles, for the stress, for the learning that keep piling up your brain like an over-stuffs library shelf; remember my friend, 'Make it count'. Make it count and use your stuff to your advantage. Learn, enjoy, contribute and never doubt yourself. You don't even know what you are capable of. Make wise decisions, get more smart and rise above everything. And alas, while having fun rising constantly through the intermittent turmoil, 'viola'; you have reached the plateau. You have achieved things you hadn't even imagined you could have achieved all your life. The important things you missed were not for vain after all. Hence, the endurance, hence the penance, hence the fun of life as it is given by God.

Man is a social animal?

In our textbooks, we have read the popular statement - Man is a social animal. I find that animals are more social than man. The human species seems to be the least social in the last few years of developments ;-) As we move further in life, we meet more people, we interact with many of the better intellects. It builds our perspective and humbles us further. This is an important part of maturity. Meeting people as we age is a must. Learning from the experiences is 'common sensical' intelligence.

The clout under the democracy's veil

I was greatly impressed by Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged though it took months for me to read. I digested the thought of human non-utility of desperate people at the top of the political hierarchy from it. The thought of useless people in power, talking about thing they can't do, afraid of the people who can do great things to the country. What I see now in the recent week's interview, just reinstates the same. The person may be innocent. He may be talking full of emotion, but he can't and won't change anything... His family's name is at stake. His party's name is at stake. As we all know and have been seeing for years about the thousand's of crores of money they have made and how they have ignored the state's affairs. The interviewer brought out several of the scandals done by the powerful. We all know what is happening in the system, we just want it to stop and the unjust be punished. With great power comes responsibility. Being powerful is not wrong, but being powerfully unjust is just not pardonable. My dearest Mother India; why have you taken so much of pain. Why have your children endured the torment of corruption to the core. Why is the country's economy boiling in the last two years in the like's of which it hasn't seen in the last 200 years. I love you mother, I want your children to prosper. I do not want your face, the face of rising India to be shown as the crying naked child having malnutrition and picking on roadside garbage. Time and again, we Indians have proven worthy of unique intelligence. We will stand by you, my dearest mother. I just pray that the rising inflation should stabilize. Corruption or no corruption, every Indian should get access to his daily morsel, not by alms but by rightly earning it in the possible way. Education should reach the nooks of the nation. Food, nutrition and sanitation should reach the poorest. Leaders should rise. Vision should re-emerge. Notwithstanding the decay of our rich 35,000 year old culture, we should be tolerant of diversity yet, intolerant of injustice. We Indians will live and let live and make this this world a better place.

Tears welled up in my eyes

Tears welled up in my eyes, was it love, was it resentment, was it a silent sense of a long deserved achievement? Or was it a sense of gratitude? Yes, I am thankful Oo teacher, you have recreated the same frenzy of feelings of thankfulness which makes one feel, what did I do, to be blessed with such good things... Eleven years ago, I used to go for Maths-Science tuitions during my 9th Grade under a famous teacher in my locality called Mrs. Gokhale. It is very normal for students to go for extra tuitions in the city of Mumbai such that we used to feel obviously surprised that not everyone goes to tuitions in any other part of India. We have re-defined tuitions to a strategy to compete for the merit list in class rather than actually being a helping hand in understanding difficult subjects. I was among the group which is shy in class & generally tries to wrap up the classwork & homework rather than trying to find out 'what was what & why was that like that'. It was a 2:00 to 3:30pm class everyday after school on weekdays when we would finish our school in the morning, rush home, have a quick lunch, try to squeeze in a game of NFS Hot pursuit for leftover 5-8 minutes after lunch & rush to the tuition class by 1:45pm. Mrs. Gokhale was teaching Algebra - Polynomial equations. She had given some equations and a small part of which was to factorize a polynomial. I loved mathematics & absent-mindedly written in one part: x*x -7*x + 12 = 0 as x=3,4 as it was too simple. Mrs. Gokhale teacher was a task master & wanted students to express the steps in the right prescribed & universally accepted methods only. She would not like short cuts as even careless mistakes often lead to the common outcome of overlooking portent arguments. Mrs. Gokhale called me when she was checking that day's class work of the study group for the day. I was afraid as she seldom used to call anybody next to her for explaining things at the end of the class that day itself. It usually meant that there was some critical mistake for which there was going to be some serious remonstration. I went & sat next to her. She showed me the expression that I had written & patiently started explaining to me. I have written the monologue as much as my memory supports but I am pretty sure it remains embedded in my mind for life as a special event. Karthik, come sit. What you have written here is not the right way of showing sequence of steps in algebra. See, x*x-7*x+12=0 => x*x-4*x-3*x+12=0 => x(x-4)-3(x-3)=0 => (x-4)(x-3)=0 => x-4=0 OR x-3 =0 => x=4 OR x=3 I had been doing this kind of Math from 4th grade onwards and I was generally confident of not losing any marks in the mathematics examinations. This was nothing new to me. But what she had taught that day remains hardwired in my mind till now for the following reasons. She earnestness believed that I didn't know the steps involved and hence in all these years, I was simply solving algebra in a closed outlook fashion with less regard for knowing why I was doing what I was doing. I was absent-mindedly printing out answers for the prose of algebra alright without enjoying the verses hidden which had much to tell. She didnt shun me simply as most other teachers do by saying, "you should know these things by the time you enter 9th Grade. I am not going to tell you all this..." Instead, she taught me once & for all how to respect Algebra & write poems in Algebra. Though I may not have become a great poet of Mathematics more than an admirer of poems in Mathematics, I learnt it for life with her deliberate effort to reform me. I did reform for life with her little effort. Thank you Gokhale teacher. The tears of joy welling up my eyes is a silent sign of gratitude to you. Eleven years later, this feelings are revoked today. Sir, I am a young guy who had given innumerable public presentations in front of innumerable types of audiences in a variety of situations and pertaining to different topics.The mistakes I may be doing may have been camouflaged over the veil of experience. What is done for a really long time may not always be the right thing to do. Even though, you could have overlooked mistakes I made in the presentation & grade the personal errors like all my past teachers have been doing based on the mindset - 'Imbibing presentation skill is not my job, I simply teach the subject. Till he learns that, it is fine with me.' You instead sat with me for hours together, taught me why some things were wrong. Taught me, how what we express in written in presentation slides should be closest to how we frame the problem & attach with a solution. How to eliminate what is not needed, kill the residency & keep focussed on the goal set like a sure shot arrow. Your persona reflects the ideology that one's conviction is best if it is reflected in one's actions & expressions. Not only have I listened carefully to whatevery you say, your deeds also have an impact on me. I have been worshipping the virtue of earnestness in humankind for a long time now. Tears well up my eyes when I meet an earnest teacher. I am forever indebted to you for teaching me all those things which you have nowhere obligations to. Going out of the way may not be the sensible sustainable way for few others to be a senior teacher. But for me, it plants a seed of indebtedness in the students.Seeds from which 'the plants of gratefulness' will bloom which makes people feel: "Good things have happened to me, now it is my turn to return it to the society, now it is my turn to go out of the way." Tears of joy well up my eyes to see the greatest reformers of humankind at work - the Teachers.