Comeback post... on Cisco

Wow! Its been quite some time since I posted. Well I am back and hopefully am here to stay.

As a part of this comeback post, I would like to upload a short write up created by me on Leadership @ Cisco Systems as part of my management course @ IIMB.

Feel free to use this document as a reference with proper attribution. Also please leave a comment on this post if you are doing so.

WTF!!

THIS NEEDS TO STOP!!!

Winston Smith is Big Brother!!!

What a revelation!

Winston Smith is Big Brother!!

I have been watching the film adaptation of 1984, the greatest novel of the 20th Century. You see I had not watched the film before. The lead character playing Winston Smith looked awfully familiar.

Now where have I seen him before??

Wait a minute...

The dude is the same guy who plays "The Leader" Adam Susan (Adam Sutler in the movie) in the film adaptation of the greatest graphic novel of 20th Century, V For Vendetta.


The fact that I like V for Vendetta would be evident to those who look at my profile picture on the top left of this page. Adam Susan's character or V for Vendetta for that matter was most definitely inspired by Big Brother and 1984 respectively. To link V For Vendetta with 1984 in this way got me so excited that I had to write about it

The actor's name it turns out is John Hurt. Now, I don't know if the Wachowski Brothers wanted to pay homage to 1984 or whether they wanted to drive home the point that we had forgot 1984 for too long and that history has come one full circle, but I just love this piece of pop culture trivia. So once again...

WINSTON SMITH IS BIG BROTHER!!!

Welcome to the Nuclear Family

Yesterday was a day of monumental importance to India. India has received a full waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a cabal of elitist nations which decide who can and cannot use Nuclear Technology.

I am no nuclear tech. expert and am hence not going to delve into the viability of nuclear technology in satisfying India's ravenous hunger for power.

Neither am I a political strategist who can look into the fallout of this deal with respect to geo-strategy. But there are two things that stand out that even a layman like me can notice.

Firstly, this act pretty much completes the aligning of India with the U.S and the West in terms of international geopolitics. At this moment it is impossible or at least very difficult to talk about the long term implications of this move i.e. whether it is of net positive or negative consequence to the ambitions of India. However what can without doubt be said is the fact that India has set itself on a course which is a marked shift in its political strategy thus far.

Secondly, it is our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's moment in international history. Mr. Singh had almost two decades back led a then very unpopulist movement called 'economic liberalization' and that has turned out well of India (at least thus far). I hope that he has made the right choices this time too. I have to say that I am really impressed by the personal conviction with which he has led this campaign. Conviction and the balls to take up unpopular but much needed decisions are qualities that are as rare in India as the fuel grade Uranium and Plutonium that we so desperately seek.

Kudos Mr. Singh. Here's to you!

Are you game?

Disclaimer: This post is based on the ending of the movie 'The Dark Knight' which had the late Heath Ledger portray the 'Joker' with psychotic perfection. If you have not seen the movie yet and do not wish for the plot to be revealed, please leave this page now.

For others, here is a quick recap of the climax.



Plot Spoiler Begins:

The Joker loves to play games.Being faithful to his sadistic instincts, he decides to play a game whose high stakes are human lives.

There are two boats marooned off the coast of Gotham City. One of the boats holds the law abiding citizens of Gotham City fleeing from his tyranny, while the other boat holds the law breaking convicts of Gotham City who are being transported to another penitentiary.

Now here is the GAME.

Both the boats, unbeknown to its occupants have been filled with explosives. However, the detonators for the explosives are in the hands of the occupants of the other boat i.e. the convicts hold the detonator to blow up the civilians' boat while the civilians can at the same time blow up the boats holding the convicts. The Joker then, lays down the rules frightened people playing the 'Game'...

1. If you blow up the occupants of the other boat, you live.
2. If by midnight, neither of the boats have blown each other up, the Grand Referee a.k.a the Joker shall blow both of them up.

However, the people of Gotham City, the honorable souls that they are, decide not to blow up each other.

Plot Spoiler Ends

Now this is where the really interesting(?) part of this post begins.

With my recent exposure to Game Theory, I became fascinated with the nature of the game being played by the Joker. So I decided to create a payoff matrix for the game (See below).




As you can see, the Rows represent the decisions taken by the Convicts and the Columns represent the decisions taken by the Civilians. Additionally, in each cell, the first number represents the payoff for the Convicts and the second one represents the payoff for the Civilians.

Now here is the rationale for the payoffs...

minus 2 - The payoff of the guilt of killing somebody.

minus 100 - The payoff for dying :) with the sense of betrayal as you have been killed by the other group.

minus 50 - The pay off for dying but without the sense of betrayal as you would have been killed by the joker.

minus 102 - Dying with both a sense of guilt and betrayal.

As was already mentioned, the result was that neither of them killed each other .

Those familiar with Game theory will smile and say that this payoff matrix is exactly similar to that of the Prisoners' Dilemma. They are absolutely right. The payoff matrix ended up this way coincidentally (Scout's Honor). As this is indeed the Prisoners' Dilemma, the Nash Equilibrium would have ended with both the teams blowing each other up. However, they have played cooperatively and it is interesting to know that in trusting each other, they have also achieved the highest payoffs possible. Another interesting thing to note is that both the teams played cooperatively without any kind of communication except for the fact that if they are still alive, then the other team has not blown them up yet. This help build the trust slowly to the level that they knew that the other group too was playing cooperatively. Thus there are still certain things that Microeconomics can't explain :D.

I myself agree that there are two possible loopholes in my above theory.

1. The Kill/Kill payoff is practically impossible as the chances of it occuring is very less.
2. The Kill/Kill and Don't Kill/Don't Kill payoffs should be much closer.

Now this brings us to the end of this long blog post. I would love to know your viewpoints on my above theory. Please feel free to dissect the payoff matrix and provide your own solution to the above game. What do you think?

ARE YOU GAME?

Now I know how Rajni felt...

Today is Vinayaka Chathurthi. I wish every one a great time praying to the most affable God from the Indian Pantheon.

Today was also a day when I was in the same shoes as Rajni.

After a lot of coaxing I was convinced by my mom to perform the puja on the Vinayaka clay murthi. I might be a qualified Embedded Video Engineer , but when it comes to chanting Vedic Mantras, I am as skillful as my 'Puratchi Deivam' Sam Anderson trying to dance. For the uninitiated, Vedic Mantras is as easy as Microbiology, Neuroscience and Astrophysics put together. Anyways, my parents who are quite aware of my IQ in Vedic Mantras asked me to follow my father's lead.

All was going well until I was asked to repeat a piece of mantra at the speed in which my father chanted it. To get the drift of my father's speed, just think of Eminem rapping 'Way I am' in twice the speed. Over the years I have adapted fairly enough to following his lead, but this one left me stunned and gasping for comprehension. Which is the mantra you ask? Look at 2:14 in the below video.



Now I felt what Rajni must have felt. I have promised myself to find out what this Mantra is and what it actually means. Any idea which mantra this is?

BTW, take a look at my 'Puratchi Deivam' dancing to the tunes of 'Rasathi'. Enjoy!!

Down the highway to hell

Wow! What an experience!

I have never been to a rock concert before, though I would give my right arm to hear Led Zepplin or Pink Floyd live. Of course, I have not been able to attend concerts by the legends themselves, but Parikrama more than made up for it.

Parikrama were in the Chennai yesterday, playing for the Times Of India organized "Times Chennai Festival" and I grabbed the chance to hear them live. And to say the least...

Man! I am impressed!

Sonam Sherpa is a wizard with the Guitar and along with Imran on the violin created magic on stage. Any mention of Parikrama would of course be incomplete without talking about lead vocalist Nitin Malik who had the crowd regularly revved up. Though they played international popular numbers, they did just as great with their original compositions too.

After hearing them live, I feel sad that this band is not as popular as singers/music directors in Bollywood are. However, thanks to Parikrama, I was able to let my hair down and go crazy after a long time.

Rock on Parikrama! Keep the light of Indian Rock alive!

Khiladi plays with 99 Balloons

Everybody has their list of favorite songs. So do I.

As far as my list is concerned, it consists only of those songs that have touched some raw emotion in me. Anger, hate, sadness... even a sense of despondency. Sometimes I am touched by these emotions despite they not being intended by the artist.

This is the case with 'Kudhko kya' from Khiladi (1992). In spite of this being a song about teenage fun, it touches a chord of melancholy in my heart. Surely there's Freudian theory about why feel this way. As far as I am concerned however, this emotion is simply the reason why this song features in my list.

However when you come to know some thing thats had this sort of an effect on you is not an original composition, it feels kinda bad. You feel that something that you felt defined you in some way is not real.

Anyways... I give you both the 'Original' and the chronologically earlier version. Enjoy.

The Minority Report

After a long day at the office, all I wanted was to get home and relax and watch a movie... "My Fat Greek Wedding" to be precise, but one glimpse at what was going on CNN-IBN's "Face The Nation" and I knew that I simply had to write about it.

The topic under debate on the channel was the recent protests and treatment of the ethnic Indian minority. I for one am an Indian, born a Hindu and most certainly a Tamil. So it goes without saying that I have an opinion about what is going on in Malaysia. However, I will refrain from writing my two cents about the actual happenings because in order to do so, one has to collect more data than just random news clippings in order to provide a disinterested view of the situation.

What really caught my eye during the debate was the name of the organization leading the protests... The Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf).

I couldn't but notice the irony in the name. Think about it... a group of ethnic Indian Tamils (at least the majority of the ethnic Indians in Malaysia are Tamils) identify themselves as Hindus. This comes at a time when a sizable chunk of their native brethren consider themselves as being a group of distinctive non-Hindus with some going to the extent of terming Hinduism as a whole being a plot to oppress Tamils. What is even more ironic is that the rise of anti-Hinduism in Tamil Nadu over the last one century pretty much coincides chronologically with the rise of Hindu identity among ethnic Indian/Tamils in Malaysia.

This jarring contradiction of people of the same origin choosing and opposing the same idea raises questions in my mind. What is the religious identity of Tamils? More importantly, what is the religious identity of any minority group?

A closer look reveals that this is something that can be determined only in the context of the situation that makes the group a minority or to be more politically incorrect, it is the majority which determines the religious identity of the minority.

There are two ways in which the religious identity of the minority gets defined.
(i) It is seen as a way to distinguish the minority from the majority.
(ii) It serves as form of rebellion against the majority.

The religious leanings of Malaysian ethnic Tamils and the converse behavior of many Tamilians here in India serves as an example of the former. In case of the Malaysian Tamils, since the line between majority and minority has already been drawn, religion is seen as a rallying point because religion indirectly represents culture which in turn indirectly represents ethnic divide.

The same theory can be applied to Indian Tamils as well, with their non-Hindu identity seen as representing something distinctly different from the North Indians.


Strong examples of religious identity being a weapon of rebellion can be seen in the slow tilt of African-Americans towards Islam as well as the mass conversions of Dalits to Buddhism.In these cases the minority-majority have had the same religious affiliations (at least in the recent past) and hence see the move away from the majority's religion as a way of asserting themselves.

You may agree with me or you may not agree with me, but you are more than welcome to leave your comments on this post. Before you do so, please remember that this is not a rant against any religion. All I have done here is provide my own observations about sociological behavior of groups of lesser numbers in a multicultural/multi ethnic society.

Batman Begins, Casino Royale and Superman Returns

Wondering about the title???

Wikipedia defines reboot as follows...

In computing, booting/rebooting (booting up) is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. A boot sequence is the set of operations the computer performs when it is switched on that loads an operating system.

Yet another meaning is...

Reboot, in serial fiction, means a discarding of much or even all previous continuity in the series, to start anew. Effectively, all previously-known fictive history is declared by the writer(s) to be null and void, and the series starts over.

Batman Begins, Casino Royale and Superman Returns are... you guessed it. Reboots... and is this post.

Using this post I hereby declare to the world that "Ramblings of a Nerd" has been officially rebooted. Of course, I will not be deleting my previous posts though. Hell, I spent a lot of time on those posts. I am not throwing them out the window.

In light of this reboot, I have decided to give the blog a new look. Hope you guys like it.

I chose the sunrise blog template to indicate a new rising. A new beginning. A new Scipio.

PS: The scenery on the header is actually a sunset, but hey! Cut me some slack here alrite??

I hang my head...

...in shame. Period.

Mr.Hand-Me-Downs

Boy cribs to his mom, "You have always given me hand-me-downs when I was a kid. Mostly stuff that had been used by sis."

He continues, "Second-hand cycle, second-hand school bags, second-hand geometry boxes, second-hand sketch pens..."

Mom thinks for a second.

"You know... she did use my womb before you did."

Boy shuts up. Man reflects.

Many sons and lots of guns!!!

What kind of a cottage industry would you suggest to put rural India on a growth trajectory?

Amul?
Khadhi??
Handicrafts???

Here is a leaf out of the book from Pakistan.
Watch and learn all ye Indians who crib about rural employment! Watch and Learn!!



Many sons and lots of guns!
After seeing this video, I am amazed how we were able to win five wars against these people.

The Departed

Scipio see "The Departed".

Scipio liking "The Departed".

Scipio think Jack Nicholson is God.

Scipio will very much liking to see a Tamil remake of this movie. Is Gautham Menon listening?

Here is them YouTube links to the trailer and my favorite soundtrack from the movie.

Some pictures are worth a thousand words...

...but then some stun you into silence.

Time to reflect.

Is Tamil and Tamil Culture in danger?

This is the question that is on the minds of the PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi) et al who are worried about the future of oldest spoken language in the world, as well as its culture.

For those, new to Tamil Nadu politics, PMK is one of the major political parties in Tamil Nadu with strong presence in both the State Assembly as well as the Lok Sabha.

It is one thing that the beautiful language of Tamil (which is also my mother tongue) has an unbroken history of oral and written literature. Countless invasions and mixing with other races has not affected the central nerve of this language. Nevertheless, I agree with the PMK that Tamil indeed faces the danger of redundancy in a world where English is fast becoming the most dominant language. But the approach of the PMK and many others towards such a threat is far from constructive. Many feel that the only way to counter such threats is to reject their proponents. I have a contrary approach though, that the correct way to tackle the issue would be to encourage the Tamil language and instill a sense of pride for Tamil.

At first glance, it looked like PMK along with a few others was under the same impression as mine, when it launched of the Tamil Ina Maanam Meetpu Iyakkam (Tamil Ethnic Pride Retrieval Movement) . It is one thing that the PMK would not consider me to be a Tamil enough (I am a TamBrahm) to be worthy of an opinon but I support the rejunvenation of Tamil all the same. That was until I came across this article about the launch of the movement.

Dr. Ramadoss, the chief of the PMK seems to have a narrow notion of what constitutes Tamil culture. Here is a feeler...

Party founder S. Ramadoss declared that youngsters should not be seen on
the streets after 8 p.m. "Students and youth seen roaming without a valid reason
should be taken into police custody. If they do it repeatedly, they should be
punished by the judiciary," he said

This may sound as innocuous ranting to some, but there were two other features in the article that really caught my eye. This is the first one...

The movement's (Tamil Ethnic Pride Retrieval) 300 trained volunteers, called the
Army of Black Shirts, will fan out to different districts and address the
'social problems' concerning youth and women.

Call me an alarmist, call me anti-Tamil or what you will, still I can't but compare this to these Black Shirts, despite it sounding far-fetched.

The above may be attributed to my sense of paranoia, but this following quote is what really made me write a post about this issue...

The next job is to ensure that people from other states do not exploit Tamils.
"We do not mind people coming to Tamil Nadu to earn their living but we will not
allow them to exploit Tamils,"said Selvan (PMK Youth Wing Secretary).

Such a blanket statement really does sound ominous. It gives the party a free hand for misuse and a moral right (as questioning a Tamil Pride movement would be blasphemy) to launch a tirade of action against those it considers as opponents to it, under the false garb of Tamil Nationalism.

I might be just overreacting here (and I truly hope so too), but something does not seem right about this. I sincerely hope that people see that preserving Tamil culture is not about expelling whom they consider "undesirables" but is about making sure that all the good values of Tamil Culture are passed on for generations to come and by actively encouraging the Tamil language and arts so that the uniqueness and richness of this land is savored not just by Tamils but by the entire globe.

Money, Money, Money...

I know what I don't like.

And "The Apprentice" is definitely something that does NOT figure in the list of things I don't like.

I have heard about the show before, but I never got a chance to watch it.

After watching it, I have to tell you that I am impressed. Very impressed.

Not that I think the show is probably the best reality show on TV, but due to the fact that a businessman was so smart that he was able to make money in something really different (Media) from his own business (Real Estate) by selling what he knew. Now that is what I call a shrewd businessman.

Sure, some of you might argue that there have been movies and sitcoms on the Corporate World before, but a reality show? The man really is a genius and probably deserves all the money (including those he earns from this show) in his coffers. The one thing that I did feel would have added to the dramatism of the show would have been to seat both the teams (Gold Rush & Synergy Corps) opposite to each with Mr.Trump seated at the head of the table. I would have added to the feeling of confrontation between the two teams.

I thought that Mr. Trump's trademark line, "You are fired" was a bit corny but overall, I give the show two big thumbs up. Especially to the business acumen of "The Donald".

Oh! And I almost forgot... I have an open proposal for Mr.Trump. In case my dream of starting a company comes true....

"Mr. Trump. You are HIRED"

Update: A guy called Guy shares almost the same thoughts as me pretty much around the same time as I did... I guess great men think alike (Err... what is the emoticon for Tongue in Cheek? :)

Back in Chennai

You can take an Indian out of the US,
But you can't take India out of the US.

That was no typo in the above statement. You read it right the first time.

But first things first... I am back in India.
More precisely, I am back to my Amma's Sambhar Sadam and Potato Masala (absolutely heavenly).
I had to return ahead of my original schedule as there is some stuff here that needed my presence. Now that the 'stuff' is done, moi is back to blogging.

Now back to the opening statement of this post. Ever since I returned from the US of A, I was wondering what I should write about the trip. I don't want to write about my experiences there, you know the whole "I went there... I did this... I saw this" thingy. It would really be too cliched. With all the IT engineers in India visting the US nowadays, there must already be a million such posts already. So I decided that I would write about my encounters with India in the US.

I am talking about 'India' and not 'Indians' here. You can obviously encounter an Indian in every street corner in the US, so there is not much to write about it. What I try to capture in this post is the references of India (and it's history) that I encountered in the US. I have tried to capture these references in pictures to present to you here. So here goes...


This is the Korean War Memorial in Battery Park New York.

Some of you might be wondering what the Korean War (which was really a proxy war between the US and the then Soviet Russia) have anything to do with India. It has all got to do with the little flags in the memorial. As you might have noticed, there are flags of the US, Korea and a bunch of other countries. Here is a side view of the memorial...



The memorial contains the flags of all the countries that contributed in the Korean War. As you might have guessed by now, India actively participated in the Korean War (albeit in a non belligerent mode by contributing medical corps).

Obviously I have not done justice to the memorial through my 'professional' photography. Here is the memorial as it should be seen.

While looking up this info, I came across this. It is the list of contributers to UN peacekeeping missions around the globe. Looks like India is one of the biggest contributers to peacekeeping missions. The only ones whose contribution beat India's is Pakistan and Bangladesh (These kids always seem to be playing a game of one-upmanship with us. Kids!)


This one here is my personal favorite. It was taken off the Broadway sidewalk in Manhatten. The sidewalk is unlike any other because it has plaques which identify different historic events and visits. This one marks the visit of our nation's first Prime Minister Nehru to the US. Surely he must have visited that exact spot and stood exactly where I had in order to inaugurate the plaque. It felt nice when I realized this. (On a different note, I have been unable to rotate the image using the 'img' tag. Does anyone know how one can rotate an image using the HTML tag?)

Not much to say about this next one. I shot this one during random clicking in New York. Looks like some ad which featured names of cities from around the globe. When I saw Mumbai, I just had to capture it. Nice to note that American businesses see India not just as a cheap labor sweatshop but also as a business opportunity.

At first glance, many people must find this photo puzzling. After all, it is nothing but a golden dot with the words CNN and New Delhi.

Let me explain.

This photo was shot at the CNN Center in downtown Atlanta. The CNN Center is the world headquarters of the News Channel. Here the floor of the atrium of the building is tiled in order to resemble the world map, with a golden dot representing its offices around the world. Ths dot here is a testimony to their presence in India.


This is the last photograph of my collection. Technically, it does not belong to me, but more on that later. Let me first explain the pic... Anyone who even has a slight inkling of US history must have identified that the picture is that of Martin Luther King with his family at the dinner table. Sadly the Indian connection is not in the frame. This picture is a part of a set showing MLK at the dinner table with his family. There is another front shot of him in this set which clearly shows the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi above his head. Such was the respect that this man had for the father of our nation. After all, here was a man who famously remarked, "To other countries I may go as a tourist, but to India I come as a Pilgrim".

The other shot which clearly shows Gandhi in the background is available in a small MLK memorial in the Atlanta Airport. Sadly, my camera ran out of battery and I as unable to capture it. Hence I had to make do with this one I scrounged out of the web. Hopefully I have not violated any copyrights here.

In addtion to these photos, I have photos of the Balaji temple in Atlanta, but it does not make my cut as an American reference to India. So it does not feature in the above list

Gender Equality at CNN

"I don't believe this! Justice at last.", said the woman at the CNN Center here in Atlanta.

I broke into a grin and remarked, "So there is gender equality at last."

"Yeah", she said as she whizzed past me.

Every other woman who entered was similarly elated by what they saw.

Au contraire to what you might think, this incident did not happen at the hallowed halls of CNN where unparalleled and unbiased(?) journalism takes shape. It happened here...


...right outside the public restroom at the CNN center. :)

For the first time since I had landed here in the US, the queue for the men's restroom was far longer than the women's. :D

I have no idea what women do so long inside the restroom(and don't wish to either), but we men just get inside, do our thing and get out in 3 minutes flat.

I really pity women in this aspect, coz you really don't want to use the public restroom unless you are really under pressure and the last thing you want is a serpentine queue like a Government Ration shop in India. Especially in freakin' freezing cold places in the likes New York where the men were going in and coming out in truckloads while the women had to keep fidgeting their hands waiting in the queue. The only optimistic way to look at this kind of torture is that maybe "Anticipation/delay increases the pleasure" ;)

At the CNN Center though, there was a reason this reversal of fortunes. There is a big game tonight at Atlanta called the Chick-Fil-A Bowl between Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech (with lotsa the spectators visiting the Center which is near the stadium) and where there is sports, can beer be left far behind? :)

This incident gave me some thoughts...
So what are the things in which women, by virtue of their gender(?) are given the raw deal?

• Public Restrooms - See Above
  
• Dresses - I have a feeling that since time immemorial, dresses for women are created with the single sinister goal to make them as cumbersome as possible. I can't even imagine the the kind of torment one has to go through in order run in a full Sari attire to catch an MTC Bus (which by the way, never stops exactly on the bus stop as surely as Captain Vijaykant defeats the terrorists in the end of the movie). Secondly, the greatest unsolved mystery in the world is how women can fit into jeans that are two sizes small for them. Really, I swear that to this day I am stumped as to why women would want to wear those tight jeans, though it is not something that I disapprove of. :)
• Driving - Women are pronounced guilty without trial when it comes driving. There is not a single soul of the male species that I have met who has not complained about women being bad drivers. This is not to say that women are entirely exonerated of this charge. Some women are as good a driver as Abbas is an actor.

Now comes the really interesting part of this post. As you can see my extremely limited brain cells have been able to come up with only three of the above items. Now I call upon two teams, the good guys and er... the bad girls to come on stage.

Girls, so what are the other things where women are given a wrong deal?

Dudes, you think men suffer from this type of bias too? If so, where?

Let the verbal war begin...

PS: I strictly don't want to know what women do inside the restrooms. :) If you write about it, I swear by the tonsured head of my thalaiver Rajni that I am going to delete your comment.

Brrr...

... its cold-d-d.

R-ring the l-l-liberty b-bell for I am-m in Phil-philadelphia. (shiver)