Biopsy, A liverly experience.

Day 2 of anxiety. Now the surgeon is thoroughly pissed of with me (I ask too many questions) and thinks that my operation would be more of a liability than success that he can show around. Compounded with multiple queries from various other doctors, he thinks that a biopsy would be more fruitful. So here we are, at Raheja romancing with another doctor with attitude willing to insert needles in my liver. I must say that having serious illness does has its advantage. For example I have visited all major hospitals in Mumbai by now, Jaslok, Lilavati, Raheja, you name it.

Getting on with biopsy the doctor is trying to humour me.
"what do you do for living Srinivas?"
"umm.. it is difficult to explain, you sure you want the answer?"
"sure, I have time"
"I am IT architect"
"oh there is such a thing?"
"see I told you.."
Doctor by this time looses the interest and takes out real long needle and stabs in my abdomen. It hurts like hell, even with local anaesthetic. I was going to ask him what he did for living, I think he guessed it and wanted me to shut-up. These livewire procedures are not for the people with weak heart, l mean if you look at the size of needle there are good chances that you'd faint.
I endure it, old military training comes handy. After the needle is in the liver, doctor has free hand to take out as much tissue he likes. There is this chuga-chug sound when he is taking out the stuff. Once the sound stops you are ready to kiss your wife good-bye, they declare, its over. He asked me to sleep on my stomach and after half hour there's a small blood spot on the cover. Now I know why they call biopsy as 'traumatic' procedure. One more scan to confirm that my liver is functioning (or not..) and we are out. Coming out I warned everyone about cracking jokes on my posture (I was sleeping on my stomach in hunched position). Outside an old man told me that I should not worry, he had his biopsy done just now & it didn't hurt. I was going to tell him that this was my first baby so I am little inexperienced. Good sense prevailed. I said nothing.
The doctor walks in, "is the pain better ?" I told him it was a trick question, he did not get the joke. One particular thing I noticed is that medical professionals do not have much sense of humour as we would like. Or maybe they see life in bare form everyday, so find nothing funny in sarcastic jokes of a cancer patient. The nurse called me, 'madam' by mistake and I told her that I am still a man, they are yet to perform the surgery. She, of course, didn't get it. My wife did, so it was very difficult for her to conceal the laughter. They ask you to drink something and attendant is watching to see if something oozes out of the body puncture. I almost felt like the cat in cartoons. Well nothing interesting happened, the water & tea went straight in stomach. I even had lunch after that.
On journey back home, we were discussing next action plan and my eldest brother told me that I have a long life barring few inconveniences later this year, which may include some surgeries. I told him, that meant two things, I need a long term pension plan and 'inconvenience' is good choice of word for an operation which involves removal of two thirds of the liver and subsequent chemotherapy.

Journey of No Return

Today I start my personal journey of no return. A day in my life when I can make grand statements like this. I was talking to my son today, and I realized that my outlook of the world might be changing soon. Today the doctor would decide to operate upon me, on the other hand he might open up and declare that cancer is spread so much that it is impossible to operate and chemotherapy is the only option. watching lot of strangers decide whether you should leave or not is wierdest experience of all. I also realized that I may not survive this ordeal as much I would like to. I had, what is known as, deathbed experience. There are high chances that I may have malfunctioning liver and go in coma and die naturally. Once the death is accepted as inevitable rest of decision making is rather easy. As I think about it, I am kind of short circuiting the pains part. I am told that surgical procedures of any kind are extremely dangerous and could be fatal. On the other hand chemotherapy is
seen as equally dangerous, e.g. Loss of desire for sex.. I mean what is the point in living life after that? Death might be easier option in that case. Don't think I am sex maniac but let us be serious, I will not be drinking for rest of my life, no smoking and now you take out sex what remains behind? So what is life?
That is a good question to ponder over at such an artificial Sunset of my life. I would have still liked to run that marathon with my Nike shoes you know! But all my material aspirations seem very distant now. Now the only aspiration i have is to live my life. Fight for my life, be a cancer survivor. I want my son to remember me as person who fought hard.(And of course write a book about it,with photographs of before and after, no less! :-))
With all these grand thoghts i start my journey of survival today, with abundant hope and a gratitude towards life lived. 'Right ho!' as bertie wooster might have said...

I have cancer!

Well finally my day in glory. As noted before I do not have great achievements and I used to brood over that. The fate however was in my favour. It decided to give me a glamorous disease instead. Finally I have my golden oppty to write the book, whether I survive or not!
I passed the first stages of yes/no dilemma fairly quickly and now am choosing between surgery or chemotherapy. Life is just another Starbucks.
Every doctor I meet is at first surprised, then resigned, and finally consultative. I have been dignosed to have HCC (hepato cellular carcinoma). This was based on FNAC of the large tumor in my liver, accidentally discovered during CT scan of my abdomen. However I have no other commonly observed symptoms of hcc, such as AFP markers, hepatitis (b or C). I do not have alcohol abuse history and I do not stay in sub-saharan africa to eat something carcinogenic. In short I have rather unusual case of HCC. This puzzled many doctors as the signs do not follow textbooks. Funniest part is almost all doctors agree that I would be treated well, if I go to US. Doctors are also divided on the treatment. One school proposes that first the size of the tumor should be reduced and then operated, while other school of thought is more aggressive in cutting first and treating later. However both schools are certain that if I do not treat it I will die. No brainer there... I mean, who needs highly trained doctors to tell you, you are going to die, once you have cancer? One certain Einsteine predicted long time back that life is accident!
Well it gets better, couple of doctors I met today almost wrote me off. They said the 'd' word too frequently while looking at my reports.
Now I am waiting for my chemotherapy, first ever! I read on internet that chemotherapy affects the desire to have sex, I wonder whether that is true (this will be quite a disappointment with my all new georgous look, 'see no hair', another side effect of chemo!)
Well I will find out soon enough...

Prisoner of Hospitals

It is now a week that I have been out of my prison (Hospital !). I had little breathlessness on couple of weeks ago and that started a string of tests and subsequent hospitalization. I was diagnosed to have a cardiac problem, a cancer and pulmonary complications (at the same time!). The hospitalization itself was not that bad.. well there were lot of young nurses to begin with, but the being-instructed-where-to-pee is not a state one would want to be. Especially if you are used to sufficiently democratic house (now don't get me wrong, we do have bathrooms, but we also have balconeys with potted-plants). The worse part is most of the young nurses did not know their trade, thus they would insert the needles everywhere in my body without lot of professional skill and cause all kinds of IV fluids to get in my body, where least expected. I consider this to be very dirty game on the part of nurses. After all one is expected to be warned about the punishment before treating to full effect of it. The good part is I learnt how to manage the IVs and a great deal about 'Hepatoma' (hepato-cellular carcinoma or HCC. We, in medical trade, like to use the shortforms you see..), but none about what caused the 'breathlessness'. My doctor has a hypothesis that tumour in liver causes pressure on diaphragm and causes breathlessness. I think if proven true, he would probably publish a paper on it. In other words we have a rare condition. I wonder how useful this case would be for generations of medical students. There would be discussions about whether alpha-phetoprotein level should have indicated it or it was just another form of FLC (Fibrolamellar Carcinoma). Professors would have pop-quizzes on symptoms and the right answer would be 'breathlessness'.. :-). I am looking for quite a bit of photographs taken of my tumour in liver and become famous posthumously.
My wife (who wanted to be doctor but became engineer and assumes that she has the knowledge of medicine), on the other hand, thinks that I have a problem of overgrown nose bone which is causing all this 'breathlessness'. According to her I have sinuses problem compounded with pollution. My mother thinks I do not have problem and I need lot of rest.
However all of them agree on putting me through the experiences of hospital. I do not hate hospitals in general, but what gets you, is sleeping on rexine beds and staring at the white ceilings (well.. er and also the fact that you can not really flirt with the nurses, however young - it is like being in strip clubs, you can watch but can't touch!). Hospitals are almost like a prison, you have to drink tea at time they give it to you, lunch on time, dinner on time, even sleep on time (if you decline they force a pill down your throat to make you sleep) and absolutely no sex..not even thoughts (in case it increases your blood pressure). I am sure in even in real prison they treat prisoners better and nobody is drawing their blood 2 times a day. I have got so many pricks on my hands that it is difficult to find the contiguous part of the skin. I have radioactive isotopes in my body, lungs, liver. I have been treated through multiple magnetic scans. The tests ensured that if I do not have cancer, I would have one eventually.
I have few more tests planned this week, I am assured that the new prison is in different place and has better nurses, however punishment would be little severe... this time they plan to cut me open. It is true that prisoners don't have choice, only change of wardens...

Being Rude Indian

I recently came across Talk to the Hand (Lynne Truss) and it put me on the thought of rudeness in Indian society. I think we do not have any decency left in Indian society. People push each other around, everybody speaks English but has rarely used words like 'Thank You' or 'Sorry' or 'Excuse Me'. The part that drives me nuts is that nobody holds the door, for women, old people, children, handicapped. The worst part is that the people in this category don't expect the courtesies either. For example, another day at the Airport I let an old women go ahead she didn't even thank me! Women rarely expect door to be held open for them in India. Now it is a different story that Indian hypocrites argue that women are more respected in India (!).

I have my own theory for this utter rudeness in Indian society. I think that years of foreign rule have made people very protective and focussed on self-preservation. In the process people have simply forgotten to pay attention to others. The society became so self centered that people simply forgot that there are other people. The endemic queues for getting daily things and overall poverty for generations made even rich people to be greedy. This reflected in the behavior of the larger society. Indians have tough time in standing in queues, it is another thing that the famous for queueing British ruled India for more than 200yrs. Indians don't really excuse themselves before interrupting others. Indians don't say sorry for cutting the lanes and traffic rage is notorious (sometimes you might get stabbed simply because you were not giving the side for faster vehicle!). John Moulton argued that nation resided not in obedience to laws but abiding by conventions that were not obligatory. Indians at least presently have tough time in obeying the laws, we have long way to go to 'obedience of nonenforceables'.

Orphan Generation

Finally I landed up in India for Diwali (Festival of lights). Story has it that people started celebrating it when the great Ram (of Ramayana fame, assisted in parts by monkeys, monkey gods, brother and wife who preferred to die than continue marriage), returned to Ayodhya after killing Ravana. I do not know if this is true or not, for me, gourmet ever, Diwali is lots of fun and time to eat variety of sweetmeats. I also had my vacation on the sea (Dapoli, west coast Maharashtra) and had lot of quality time with family.
Returning to India is always mixed feeling for me. I like to see the western finess in India and Indian culture in US. Sometimes I think we are really an orphan generation. Due to economical situation and other factors we definately have much better life in India or US, but we do not belong to either countries. In India my parents can not simply accept the ways of modern world. In US I can not relate to the individualism. I belong to that community which has no identity and no context in either society. I have seen many of my colleagues in US trying to find their sense of belonging in NRI communities and hindi movies. On the other hand colleagues in India find significance in buying an imported car. Where do we belong? To Diwali or X'mas that browns can not relate?

Parking Attendant in US

Ok..so I had my first well profiled remark in US of A. Time was Friday evening, when most of the world is enjoying themselves about the fact that they don't have to work for next two days. I went to this hip Japanese place for Sushi (big picture with naked girl and remark, "She Sue" and then a picture of a Fish with remark, "Sue Shi"; I thought it was fun). By and large I am not much in favor of Sashimi (fresh sliced raw fish), but the art and style of making Sushi always gets me.
Since we were in hurry I chose Valet Parking. In Phoenix AZ most of the city is always in short pants. Either the heat gets them or it is a fashion statement in this part of the world. Following do as Romans, I had my work shirt (white) and short pant for an evening outing. Little did I realize it was the dressing disaster (as style connoisseur would have it). The restaurant did allow us to get in and finish our dinner. We came out exchanging good tip and thanks with our Sushi-chef and waited for Valet to get my car. At this time two 'Friday evening' attired girls came out of the restaurant and almost handed over their parking ticket to me and asked me to get their car.
I did not get it first time, I asked, "Do I look like Parking attendant?", one of the girl said, "yeah sure, you are wearing this white shirt and dark pants and standing by the parking booth". I laughed it off, my friend consoled me that we could have really taken her card and probably drove in her car, which could have been better... Eventually I got it, she was not referring to my dress at all, she thought, genuinely, that I was the parking Valet. I was overwhelmed by the acute feeling of racial profiling. It was funny and at the same time very real. I told the 'real' parking attendant about it, we all had a good laugh about it and he was worried whether I pocketed the tip from her.
Driving home I realized what racial discrimination meant. In workplaces and people I meet are too influenced by world economy, it is only outside the ordinary people can give you the real feeling of social undercurrents.
I always get this question, "if you travel to US so much, why don't you stay here forever?", now I think maybe I should, afterall parking attendants make way more money in US than imported software engineers with bad dress code.

Life is short, buy the Shoes

Labor day (Labour for us General Indian English folks) is a long awaited holiday in US. It is official start of Autumn. Compared to India, in US the official holidays are very few and insecure Americans keep working through these holidays anyway!
The last holiday was the independence day on 4th July. Of course in capitalist world holidays translate in more retail sales and high turnover. Even the mall barber shops are open during holidays. Both holidays, 4th July and 4th September translate in more sales as these are immediately after the payday for most of the average Americans (yes in contrast to what many people in the world believe, average Americans make approx. $45K per annum and have limited disposable income). So I joined the bandwagon of many million Americans in holiday spending spree. It is important for my business that American economy is stable and growing, so I contribute wherever and whenever I can. I buy the stuff, I may not need, would never use, but hey, this is business not personal (The Godfather - it is a bible of life and has answer for everything, "What to pack for travel?", "..leave the gun take the cannoli.").

Well anyway, I had to do my bit so I tried multiple things. It is very difficult for me to go buy something at a whim (called incidental shopping in US). Especially with all that middle class background in Indian family. This is true for the things I need, now imagine trying to do incidental shopping for the things that I don't need!

At first I tried with some gift articles I wanted to buy for my relatives back home, this proved to be quite time-consuming exercise and I was not convinced that the salesperson knew any better. I decided to do some internet research before buying. Then I tried something for my own use (or not)... I could never submit myself to buying clothes in US, since majority of them are made in India, Srilanka, Malaysia or Pakistan and I could buy them much cheaper back home. To my mind this is last step before Americanization, so never do it.
Finally I zeroed on shoes. The story goes like this, in past few months, my weight went up exponentially, so I had to do lot of exercise, one of the things I do is a long run in the morning on Green belt behind my apartment. As it turns out, I have never done the hard court running in the past. This resulted in shin splints (very painful at that!). The 'wise' people advised me to buy better shoes than my $15 Walmart all purpose athletic shoes. As if I needed another reason to spend money. I went through internet running sites, branded goods sites and Men's Health magazine (yes the same one!). Nike had new 'human engineering' shoes, which were supposed to be much better cushioned for runners. Well, that was enough convincing for me to buy the $85 shoes. Sports Authority was very close and the commitment to run 2-3 times a week seemed very much achievable. So after 5 mins long research and a resolve to run everyday, I was ready to spend the $85 plus tax (gotta pay Uncle Sam!). Now the most needed thing was bought, I was thirsty for more.
Typically when I travel I carry one formal shoes pair and one casual. But now I realize how uncivilized I was. What I really needed was one casual, one athletic, one for running and one formal. Ignorance is never bliss. Now I know why I was feeling so out of place in United States. I just did not had enough shoes! I wanted to fix the problem so I went to another shoes shop in the mall, now the kindly people at the store were offering me half price on second pair. It would have been very rude of me to just reject their offer. We checked various shoes and finally managed to leave with only one red cordovan shoe pair. It took me long time to select the red shoes, but you know, there is never such a thing called perfect shoe. So you have to buy more than one imperfect pairs, at least you would get closer! Thus, after $200 on shoes and a Joni Mitchell CD (Both Sides now - Love is life's illusion - I heard it first time in Love Actually, nice songs), I was out of the mall. Happy that I contributed something to the $9 trillion economy of US. 25% of that comes from Retail. If I am ever to be known to the posterity, I would be known as one good shopper in US who spent lots of money on shoes. After all life is short, everybody needs to buy more shoes, whether in US or otherwise.

Staying in America

Every time I visit, United States of America it is always a new experience. At immigration counter, I get questions like, how many times you visited US? I am usually tempted to answer, this is my first time..
Every time I visit, there is a new crisis the country is going through, last year it was war, year before that there was homeland security, this year it is gas prices... The list goes on. I do not watch the news closely enough but I think US probably has crisis every day. One day it was missing girl in Aruba, another day it was Drunken Driver going bersek, few days ago it was a dead news reporter. I love the media in US. They cover each and every thing as if it is first time it is happening. The US media is so powerful that it can help an average (and not so average) American Joe/Jane to become a president.
US is also considered as "melting pot" of various cultures and ethnicities. I love this part, anywhere in US you would get a Chinese eating place, Mexican restaurant, Outback (Australian), Indian eatery, Jewish food... the list can go on. Seriously one can get all kind of food in America. Another thing I like about US is, despite such large land mass, one can get seafood
practically anywhere. For a gourmet like me it is indeed a party.

There are three most important things in US a person should have... Credit Card, Car and a Cellphone (also known as 3C's). Practically every bank would open an account for you (if you have sufficient money), with or without a SSN. A Car can be rented and pre-paid Cellphones are available (now!). Most of the companies now issue international credit cards so no worries about frauds or authorizations.

Filet Mignon

Filet Mignon - French Derivative, it means small or dainty fillet (filet = boneless meat - mignon=small dainty).
So we were at Monty's steakhouse. This is American thing. If you are in America you have to eat the steak. Americans from early days of settling were infatuated by the beef and have carried that tradition very well. I was convincing my friend to eat a steak, he naturally was afraid, being an Indian Hindu Brahmin, perhaps it was more of my fault than his. One of the things I do not like about American steaks is its flatness. Even the best steakhouses do not serve the spicy richness that is required to go with the red meat. So I always go for Filet Mignon, thanks to the French, it is gurranteed of being same taste world over. Also thanks to the food fashion statement of calling everything French, Filet Mignon is known as Filet Mignon in most parts of the world. Some places in US they sell it as Tenderloin Steak but it means pretty much the same thing.

I can say that I do have some authority on the steak in particular (10 yrs of eating as opposed to getting used to it as a lifelong staple food!). It has to be medium rare for best taste and the meat has to be tender, not the heavy duty fat content stuff... Not because I am health concious (at 170 pounds you generally become one!), but mostly due to the chewi-ness that comes with the fat.
Thankfully I have sharp teeth, so not much worries about choking hazards.

Filet Mignon goes very well with Cabarnet. In Matrix (first part) Cypher says, "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? [Takes a bite of steak] Ignorance is bliss". Except in my case it did exist and was juicy and delicious...well and I missed Cabarnet as well. Being the designated driver in the group I had to sip on Iced Tea.

Sometimes I wonder, what would world have been, had it not been for French to invent how to cook beef?

In Routine

I am still not over the Groundhog Day... More time I spent here, more I feel like man in prison. Agreed I have more activities now, I play tennis, I go swimming and even shopping... but in the end it is simply a mechanism to pass the time. Like Red in Shawshank Redemption says, "in prison a man will do anything to keep his mind occupied." So I keep doing my routine activities. Like prison, my life at present contains of routine, and then more routine.

I liked the Shawshank Redemption, first time I watched.. eventually I watched one more time on the Star Movies. I never read the original short story by Stephen King (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption)... and I am being honest here, I liked the Screen play better, so much that I am not looking for the story book anyway. Morgan Freeman is good as usual and I really enjoyed his comment about being Irish..very funny...

Apartments and Credit Reports

It is interesting to rent apartments in US. For example, every apartment advertises about fair housing and does a thorough background check on you before signing a lease... I love the way they represent the case about credit check and criminal background check. Mind you, most of these leasing consultants get commission on the number of rents they sign up.

Another interesting thing in US is credit report. It is almost close to the Orwell book...1984. Your SSN is tracked for credit history. Somebody (the big brother or the cartel of private companies) keeps track of money that you spent (or in some cases did not spent) and then for a little charge everybody but you can see this report and make a judgement about you. I appreciate the value of such information and perhaps it makes many others in the society feel safer. However it still feels very creepy... I certainly do not appreciate the fact that everybody can see it. And if it is so publicly available what prevents intentional interference with my report by some real wise guy(s) out there?

US is a free country with very high price for freedom.. some times I wonder whether it is really worth.... From driving the car to renting an apartment, law and regulations make it so intrusive that you can not breath without worrying about breath analyzer... I am sure Thomas Jefferson did not imagine this society...

Groundhog Day

I saw Groundhog Day one more time on the TV today. I saw this movie first time in UK in 1996 on a tape given by Paul Klaassen. It turns out the background of the movie is real. The plot is simple, an egoist weatherman (Bill Murray) gets caught in the time warp in the small town of Punxsutawney until he becomes a better person. He faces the same Groundhog Day again and again and again... well you get the point.
I remember Paul saying that we are very much like Phil Connors (Bill) in the movie... and I agree. We are all caught up in the same day. We do same things every day, wake up, goto same office, drink same coffee, meet same people and talk about same things. Next day it is all same day again. Gosh.. I even have same wife to meet every day! My travelling engagements have also become kind of routine now...

I liked the movie first time and I still like it every time I see it. I generally like Bill Murray and his tongue-in-cheek comedies.

Here is one more thought.. According to the legend, Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog - website ascertains that there is only one !) has been predicting weather for 119 years on every 2nd February.. how much more routine you can get?

Rental Car

It is rather interesting experience to travel on business. Staying in hotel has its own advantages (e.g. late night TV and room service). But most I like is rented cars. Everytime I travel to a different country my stay is never long enough to actually buy a car for while. So I end up doing these monthly rents. My fav. company so far has been Hertz. And they get me new cars every time. So far I have driven, Chevy Impala, Explorer, Focus, Elantra, Camry, Corolla and many other models that I even don't remember... I guess it is my little fantasy world. I drive new car every month which otherwise wouldn't have been possible for me at all to buy.. Definately not in India where I stay. Most of these cars when imported would be hugely costly and some are not even available...
It is just funny to think about it. The person who could not otherwise even dream of buying these cars can drive them with relative ease and cost in a different country at very less cost when rented.. welcome to globalization and capital world...

Beer for the breakfast

Ok.. it is almost one and half month now that I landed in US of A. Routine business.
One of the first things I did at Chicago airport was eating a big mac. Now..I know there is quite a bit of political uproar about big burgers (remember 'Super Size Me' ?) but for me it was the begining of my stay in America. For some reason or other I could not imagine an American trip without eating big mac.
Another advantages of travelling alone on business is you get to stay in hotels all by yourself. You can watch TV at 3:00 AM in the morning and nobody bothers you. You can use one towel everyday and housekeeping cleans it. You can run the AC for entire day and utility guys are not after you.. God I love the business travel. I have a Waffles House (Good food since 1955.. yeah right!) right across the hotel, I enjoy very lazy breakfasts there (and they are cheap - just what the doctor ordered). However on a recent weekend, I dozed around till late and actually had to cook breakfast by myself. Naturally I needed a cold drink to go with my breakfast. It turned out to be Mexican Corona. Now I am not against imported beer, I believe Americans have their own share of good beers, but it just turned out to be at right place at right time... Well nearly, I have a Circle K few blocks away from the hotel and at present they are my primary suppliers of quality beer. It is little scary place where the guys behind the counter ask ID for every transaction and think twice before opening the cash register for return money. But they have a good stock of beer, a cold room and lots of Corona. At first I did not catch the Corono with lime (its not lemon) taste, but now I have learnt to appreciate it... Afterall it is not everyday one has beer for a breakfast.

PS: Another Americanism: Everything is a chain across the nation. CircleK, Waffles House, Old fav. McD.. Thus thankfully anywhere you go in America, there are same TV commercials, so you know when is the time to sip a beer between TV shows.

Knowledge is Constraint

Right.. start with the philosophical thought for the day. I have been thinking about this thing for a while. A month ago one of my colleagues, Sandeep, came up with the idea of software development automation. His idea was to create agents which could organically learn and create software constructs. This spurred thoughts in my mind about how much constrained we are about what is possible. Say we are facing a problem, we typically tend to solve it using the knowledge that we already have. This in turn prevents us (or our minds) from having new ideas. As usual our mind keeps thinking of what is feasible, based on prior knowledge. This is more emphatic in information technology. The new techniques come up every other day and we have to some extent glorified the term "innovation". Essentially what we do is use old discoveries in new contexts.. some people even went ahead and termed it as "applied innovation", wow talk of play of words!
Human minds are tuned to reuse the knowledge, to an extent that majority of us could not trust any new notion. History is full stories of this kind. A scientist proposes a new idea and rest of the society turns its back on it, terming it is one of those "new ideas". Even Julius Caesar at one point of time wondered whether there was anything beyond "known universe". Fortunately in modern times (ok... these are modern times because I am in it; Time like everything else is relative!), we are less opposed to new ideas. However coming back to problem solving, our knowledge of existing techniques and tricks is always a constraint. If the problem could not be solved using existing tricks we think it is difficult to solve... Ok I am not advising the creative mind theory here, but I think if we remove the constraint we are probably half way there. It is important to remove this constrain, as a fellow blogger quotes, What ur mind doesn’t know, ur eyes wont see.
Removing constraints of knowledge would also mean freeing mind to solve problems as a child would. Theoretically a child has no knowledge so your mind free of knowledge and child's mind should be at equal advantage (or disadvantage depending on way you look at it). Thus a child can solve the problems much better than an adult. But this does not seem to be the case... so what is missing in this theory ? I do not know... I am still thinking...

Meet Me, My Best Friend

Occassion: Vidyapeeth Highschool 1985-86 batch Re-union. Kolhapur..
I have never felt so lonely in a social occassion. There I was, standing amongst familiar (and some not so familiar) faces. Some came forward and shook hands, others required introductions. Some deliberately ignored. However people were jolly and at the same time nostalgic. In general the mood was up-beat.
We went through the routine rig-morale of finding what people are doing now (or who-is-who) I was asked to introduce myself. It was a moment in remiss, they wanted to know what I do for living. Not that many cared. I did not try very hard. It is hard enough to explain to my wife what I do in a software company with a designation of IT Architect, it is practically impossible to explain it to bunch of strangers (well..er let us say remotely familiar people). I was also not aware how many of them knew about computers and internet in general. Then there was a form to fill in. Some took very deep interest in filling it in, assuming that would be printed in a class directory. I filled in the relevant part, ignored 'achievement's section...well I had none to note anyway and put 'reading' under hobbies.
Thinking about it...it is not rational on my part to expect them to know me. I was hardly at the school for 2-years, that too in two different divisions. My thinning hair and broadaning face did not help either. There were some close friends (in fact I hoped for more of this species..). They were also not that close as I expected. Probably they just got old.
In short everything was happy, nice get-together but I was feeling terribly lonely. Travelling back to home today, I imagined of number of things I could have told them. About my hobbies, about my cooking, about my family, about my world travels, about my professional achievements (if they could understand it :-)...then it finally occurred to me, just like that...the occassion was not to know about 'unknown' people, it was to know more about 'known' people. I was unknown then and I am unknown now. Obviously nobody was interested in knowing me.
It also occurred to me that I do not have many friends in my social circle (or is it otherway round? social circle is made of friends? not sure...). I could count few from school on my fingers and probably few from college in remaining. In the college-friends group there is always discussion of a reunion. Thankfully we never get to actually doing it...now don't assume that I simply hate people, but on social occassions I do not know what I could converse with them. Everybody is interested in how much money you make, what you do for living, how many kids you have. Probably socially these are the only things that you could ask. Very few would be actually interested in knowing, how you are. Is that what makes me run away from such social occassions? Maybe...
Probably it is better for everybody, that I stay away from reunions of such 'known' people. I probably could converse with myself better than most of these people anyway. Is there an inclination to stay with me always? Maybe I am the only person I could befriend with (little scary isn't it?). Maybe I am not a social animal after all...

Computer Games

I know computer games are very popular pastime for many people and for some it could be a obsession for life. There is also a big industry around it. Recently I was introduced to a new game called 'Age of Empires'. It is a simple strategy game in which you build your empire over thousand years using various resources such as food, technology, army etc. I enjoyed playing it, although for some reason I could not get obsessed with it. May be I am simply lacking the winning spirit that is oft spoken about.
I tried the 'Civilization' game and was able to progress with lot of engineering advances over few thousand years, but apparently failed to build good military in all occassions. Imagine, if I had been a leader of a tribe, maybe we would gone in history as most advanced nation with no recorded achievements. :-)
Somehow I could not get myself attracted towards the computer games. I know it has its own following. The earliest one 'Pacman' (DOS PC fame) to present day 'Age of Empires' have engaged gaming enthusiasts over a period of time. I once studied Game Theory in college, making assumptions about people behaviour based on rationality and common knowledge is a primary constructional pattern for many games. Of course modern day PC games have lot more graphics and really intelligent engines. This obviously leads to the personal pride issues, such as winner of Game X and winner who has reached level Y in certain game.
Strategy games differ in terms that more than killing enemies or navigation of fast bikes these games require the players to think beyond what is obvious. For some it might be challenging (well no offense but for some, even chase is a challenging game !), but in essence it is simply hierarchical thinking by infusing some rationality in it. Arguments can be made in favour of both sides. Some game enthusiasts would argue that they have better hierarchical thinking abilities than rest. However I know for a fact (er..well the people I know who play these games, i.e. 4 for now) that so called 'game enthusiasts' eventually download the 'cheat codes' for the game and simply try to win the game. (Time for philosophical thought of the day: Is modern society forcing this attitude in people, to win at whatever cost?)
At one point of time I thought having knowledge of Game Theory and nuts-n-bolts of these games would kill my enthusiasm in playing these games (which I now realise has done some damage...), but observing people downloading the 'cheat codes' makes me think that probably I was right in staying away from these games all along.
a. I have no obsessive compulsion disorder to win a game.
b. I have not wasted my time on PC games (well, I have wasted my time on lot many other things.. but not PC games)
I see many college kids playing these games on internet. I wonder how many of them would care about the Game Theory or the engines of the games. Maybe I am just getting too old.

Parting thought, real complicated games are the easiest to design...:-)

Internet Surfing

How much time one should spend in surfing the internet? This is not typical question of how much time you should spend at your gym or with your family and is not about spending "quality time together". This is simply question of how much internet time you can afford. Another day I was reading the blog of Grady Booch on IBM DeveloperWorks and I was impressed with the amount of research he does on internet. That is definately not possible unless you spend at least a few hours on internet and browsing the sites. Agreed, Grady Booch probably has more brain than average human beings and possibly could remember more things over a period of time (which is an understatement, he has been around for very long time and is not dead yet !).
I generally like to use office internet for surfing (saves family 'quality time') and speed is much better. Unfortunately, I do not get much time in office to do it. At home, like many other 'infotech-savvy' Indians, I use the VSNL dial-up (yes we live in caves and use lap-top batteries to start the fire! Talk about spread of technology to developing nations...). Now surfing internet on dial-up is really a time consuming affair. Finding ordinary information such as PDA based GSM cellphones, can easily become an hour long operation with dial-up. (and we are not counting Mrs. Kulkarni, whose looks make you feel you have been days in front of computer).
This simply rules out real valuable research on internet, like for example, most viewed porn site, which could take probably more than couple of hours. I recently decided to put at least 3-hrs every week on internet to various research and keep myself up-to-date about what is happening around the world e.g. what is largest selling lingerie in United States for this X'mas season. (For the record : That goes under heading of research in retail industry and web-site performance in peak shopping season). In any case I never managed to spend so much time on internet so far. For many it seems futile exercise to browse through huge junk information. For some it is a hobby (or area of interest). I saw some profiles which contained internet surfing as a hobby on Blogger.com. I hope these people are either unmarried, have lot of 'research' to do or simply spend lot of office and/or college resources on internet surfing. For me spending more than an hour on internet is 'moksha' for a week.

Adding to the Insignificant

Internet is an amazing thing. There are multitudes of ways by which you can create information junk and in most cases almost free ! I always think about advancement of technology and pure insignificance of the purposes we use it for. SPAM is a good example. Why on earth average people would pay money to some doubtful business sending them unsolicitated mails is simply beyond me. On the other hand e-mail as a technology has affected our lives a great deal. Recently I came across a study where telephone companies were complaining about loss of revenue on telephone booths in India. Nobody seems to need them anymore ! E-mails which can contain voice attachments, e-mails which can be read in your local language, e-mails which work even when your local post office is not, e-mails seem to have replaced average communication media. So many advances in electronic communications have also lead to large scale spread of hoaxes (RAND Computer picture in 1954) and related urban legands. It is amazing how e-mails and web sites could spread information with lightening speed in the world. Few years ago in India there was a hoax of God idols in temples drinking milk; within one day the rumours spread throughout the world and Indian people world over were rushing to the nearest temple to confirm this. I also saw few web-sites which were anouncing news per temple in India every hour. This all sounds very strange (and to some extent stupid) now, but in the abscence of internet, I doubt if this hoax would have spread so much.
Well this is first Blog and going with the theme I will keep adding the my thoughts and other junk information to this wide world of insignificant information (including my picture while we are at it)