I Dreamed a Dream

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed

Courtsey : Les Miserables

This song was performed live by Susan Boyle in the 2009 auditions of the show Britain's Got Talent.However, I stumbled upon her audition video only a few months back. Since then, I have seen this video an uncountable number of times, and yes, got goose bumps every time. Be it her divine voice or her absolute lack of interest in appearances or her heart warming nature or simply her attitude that's brimming with positiveness and simplicity; she is one lady you just cannot help falling in love with. There was something very magical about her that drew me so close; deep inside I could really identify with her. This also prompted me to do a significant amount of research on her life and background(I have devoured all her youtube videos) and her sudden rise to stardom from very humble beginnings. Her story is one that would never cease to inspire and has broad appeal to every commoner.

So what are the lessons drawn?

1. Appearances do not matter; attitude does. A person's attitude can provide the support and guidance necessary for channelising his/her talents. Appearances can only help you part of the way.

2. There is no work that's lowly or demeaning; every work is respectful, be it sitting at home and nursing your parents or working in affluent and polished workplaces.

3. Go after your dreams relentlessly. Age should never be a barrier. In fact, most people become famous only when they are old.

4. The way you feel from inside, the same way you see the world. So if you feel happy, content and positive from within, that's how the world will appear to you.

5. Don't bother about things others will think or say about you.You cannot stop people from wagging their tongues.

Long live Susan Boyle!! You have made me feel abundantly happy and you are very high up there in my list of personal heroes :)

Welcome 2012

It's once again that time when we bid adieu to one year and welcome another; a time to retrospect over the year gone by; a time to make resolutions for the next year; a time to make a fresh start on a blank slate; a yet another chance to get things right :)

So how do I summarize 2012 ? Around May timeframe I quit my old job in Novell, took a well-deserved energy boosting two month break, and finally joined Dell R &D in July, which incidentally is located in the same techpark as Novell. So much of the oldness was retained even though the workplace was new.And with the new job (having supposedly java requirements), I finally managed to shrug off the rather sticky .NET programmer tag (at least I thought so :)).But with six months gone, the work is yet to pick up speed here; not to mention that the project which I joined has since been shutdown leaving behind a cloud of uncertainty.However the exposure to technology in the new job has been quite satisfactory; I can now claim to be educated when bombarded with hardware related jargons; And not have my confidence go tumbling down a steep slope when confronted with a Java discussion.But by far, the best part about 2012 was that I was richer by a couple of really good friends :)(don't think I will ever manage to follow the advise of putting professionalism before friendship :)).

Although I have never been successful in keeping any new year resolution, it doesn't hurt to make a few; so why not indulge?? :). So here's my rather compact list of resolutions for 2012 in no particular order of importance

1. Renounce all forms of online chat (FB, Gtalk etc.). It has finally dawned on me that these chat engines are not only extremely addictive but also a massive waste of one's precious time.

2. Spend more time in the kitchen. Try lots of new recipes, instead of repeating the old ones.Start experimenting with non-vegetarian cooking.

3. Join the Camlin Hobby classes. Learn at least two new things, glass painting and something else.

4. Get the elusive driver's license.Start driving my 2-wheeler more regularly. Do something to tackle my road fright.

5. Become more disciplined and serious in life. Basically what this entails is, waking up early, cleaning the house, having breakfast, reaching office before 10:00, coming back by 6:00 and then do something useful which does not involve watching TV :).

6. Start reading more, be it newspapers or books or technology topics.Fully utilize my Just Read membership.

And that's it. A 6-point agenda should not be too difficult to follow (but who knows :( ). Bring it on 2012. I am not scared of you anymore :). However if someone can put me in a time machine and transfer me back to beginning of 2011, I will be more happy than words can say :).

About Coding and Redemption

Mostly at this time of the year with Christmas and New Year around the corner, the mood in office is very laid back, people go away on vacations and there is very little work perse. But not this time. Luckily or unluckily(I am still trying to make up my mind :)), I was literally swamped with work, after sitting idle almost the whole year round (serving the notice period in previous job, followed by 2 months break, followed by ramp-up in new job, followed by the rather dramatic shutdown of our 1.0 project). After a painfully long time, I finally found myself burning the midnight oil at a stretch for one whole week. And the fruit of that labour was of course sweet :)

But this post is about something else. The PoC that I had to work on required building a command-line windows console with scrolling and navigation capabilities. I made use of pdcurses library which is a port of the ncurses library for linux environment. The curses library provides an abstraction over low level graphics related system calls. The best thing about it is that it is distributed with several examples, which can be easily tweaked to fit custom scenarios and hence needless to say, comes very handy when programming under severe time constraints.The pressure point, however, was coding in C which with it's pointer madness did a successful job of giving me countless head banging moments :).

In the process of breaking my head over background and foreground colours and screen coordinates, I inadvertently recalled the Graphics project I had worked on in college. The project implementation and execution was itself pretty smooth, however things got screwed up big time on the final day when we were supposed to present the project to external examiners.In lawn tennis terminology, this would be called an unforced error :). I forgot to place all the files on my pen drive, because of which the project failed to run in college lab. I then had to sit in lab and hand code the missing files with a vigorously throbbing heart and palpating pulses, not to mention that the glaring eyes of the examiners didn't do much to calm my nerves :).I had managed to get it up and running, but the damage was done; the examiner had made up his mind before seeing the project itself and I didn't secure good grades. But oh I passed...what a relief!!!

So in this past week, that college nightmare has come back to haunt in bits and pieces, everytime that something was not working.But the self satisfaction that came from working on this PoC was indeed nothing short of a long awaited coding redemption :).Well done girl!! (pat on the back)

Bigg Boss : The Method in the Madness

Reality shows are all the rage on TV...but that's not reality, it's just another aesthetic form of fiction - Steven Soderbergh

I have been regularly following the current season of the reality show Bigg Boss (the indian equivalent of the UK show Big Brother) on Colours Channel. I had also followed the last season very closely, hence it's only befitting that I dedicate a post to this subject. My interest in this show stems not from the the TRP grabbing content that's aired (it's boring and predictive enough to put you to sleep not to mention that one hour daily is an awful waste of one's precious time), but with an intention of doing an objective analysis of the show purely from the perspective of game theory (not that I know anything about it :)). But none the less, here's my take on it.

Here are some of my observations in no particular order of importance, regarding how to survive in the show

1. Entertain the audience. After all they form the voter base.
2. Acknowledge that the show is actually a game and should be played like one. No point in being swayed by emotions when everyone is busy using their brains. But then don't openly brag about being a mastermind.
3. Apply the concept of "Backward Induction" i.e first consider the moves that are the last in the game and then work backwards by picking the best moves every week.In other words, first choose the final 2-3 people you want to be in the final with, and then keeping this end in mind, nominate the appropriate people for weekly eliminations.
4. Be in the know of all house politics, no matter how insignificant. The more information you have about other contestants and their moves, the better decision you can make to advance yourself in the game.
5. Do not reveal all your cards in the beginning. Make it difficult for others to understand your game.
6. Build an influence over weaker contestants. Peer support is necessary to save your neck from the nominations for weekly eliminations.
7. Don't try to maintain a holier-than-thou image in the house.It's not only extremely boring but also artificial. BE YOURSELF. This will get you the respect not just from the audience but also from your fellow contestants.
8. If on a given week you are up for eliminations (which you will be sooner or later), entertain the audience as much as you can, and try to grab maximum camera footage. If you are not a natural entertainer, then the easiest way to get the cameras to be fixed on you is to pick a fight with some fellow contestant (best candidates for this would be the weaker candidates, nominated candidates,candidates with some negative past, candidates who have been involved in fights before etc.). THE INDIAN AUDIENCE LOVES A GOOD FIGHT.
9. Do not ever say that you are missing home or missing your family. Other contestants will only use this as an excuse to nominate you.
10. Do not try to be overly diplomatic. The audience would consider it as hypocricy.
11. Mix with everyone in the show. A common excuse contestants give for nominating someone is their lack of interaction with that person.
12. Do not shy away from participating in any dispute. Put forward your opinions strongly, but do not try to influence everyone to accept your viewpoint.
13. Even when you are cornered by everybody and everyone in the house has turned against you, do not accept defeat. It might be mistaken for an admission of guilt. AND THE INDIAN AUDIENCE DOES NOT LIKE LOSERS. And for all you know, this might be a joint strategy to chuck you out of the house.So FIGHT BACK and be at your entertaining best.
14. Do not behave like sour grapes at any point. Take everything sportingly.
15. Above all, remember that the show editors will try to stereotype you as a certain character. It's totally your call which side of your personality you want to project the most.

Hopefully, watching this show has given me the practical heads-up I need to understand the infinitely more difficult world of Game Theory :)

Middle-class Appetite for Social Activism

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; Indeed it is the only thing that ever does

Civil movements with a middle class flavour were a major highlight this year. While the Arab spring in the middle east dominated the international news, closer home we had our own anti-corruption mass movement that was expertly led by eminent social activists like Anna Hazare, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi. These movements though completely independent of each other and triggered for different reasons, had a noticeable common thread running through them. At the centrestage of these protests was a hitherto reluctant middle class directing it's ire at an arrogant officialdom. The middle class which has mostly been an invisible entity in mass protests and demonstrations in India, was suddenly in the forefront of the movement, taking up the lost cause of battling corruption that has slowly but steadily been eating it's way into the very moral fibre of our society.

As the movement grew in proportion, most of us belonging to the middle class strata took to the streets, holding placards, shouting slogans, waving flags and participating in group fasts. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter were pivotal to the movement participation, organization and recruitment. In fact, spontaneous protests erupting in several pockets of the country, marked a major turning point in the movement, forcing the incumbent government to sit up and take notice. The political class of the country which so far had faced pressure either from the business enterprises or the BPL community,initially wrote off this middle class unrest as a harmless protest. But when it started becoming clear that the movement won't just die down silently and that the people on the streets meant business, the government machinery finally started churning and cabinet leaders were found on the backfoot. They soon realized that this was not the middle class with the trademark "chalta hai" attitude; this was not a scared lot; on the streets were law abiding citizens who had decided they were not going to tolerate the government's complicity in corruption any more;this was a society finally out of it's inertia and establishing it's assertiveness in public and political causes with an uncharacteristic firmness.

Middle class involvement in public protests has largely been unheard of in the history of this nation. They were not a prominent force during the freedom struggle; in fact the middle class had not yet evolved at the time. The middle class was never a driving force behind the most important reforms this country has seen. The only time some feeble protests could be heard from them, was whenever there was a fuel hike or food inflation. Even on such occasions, the opposition political parties would be the ones leading the protests, and the middle class would be largely inconspicuous on the streets.Of late, officialdom excess and delayed justice as was in the case of Jessica Lal murder or Ruchika Girhotra molestation, has sparked protests from the middle class. But once again this has been mostly sustained by the growing social activism of the media and press and not by any leadership demonstrated by the middle class.Middle class hesitation in getting involved with political causes, or issues that resonate with them, or for that matter their reluctance to even stand up for each other has been only too apparent to ignore and brush aside. Fuelling this apathy has been a lack of awareness and a sadly absent public opinion. The middle class has been neutral at best, and it won't be a far-fetched thought to say that they have even been co-conspirators with the powers at worst.

Given this background,one would instantly question the seriousness and sustainability of middle class social activism that has of late been dominating our news headlines.Has the middle class come of age? Is it drawing it's strength from it's growing numbers? Is the middle class ready to realign it's interests away from the political system? Is the middle class evolving into an influential constituency and effective pressure group? Is it becoming a clout to be reckoned with?

Only time will tell us, whether what we saw this year was just a flash in the pan or was it the beginning of the demonstration of strength by the middle class. This country has so far been witness to a complex relationship between governance, political democracy and the middle class. But the Anna Hazare movement has proved that the middle class can come out of it's shell and take part in movements that are not limited in scope by their apolitical colour but which in fact aim to reform the political system. This was not a movement driven by a mad fit of rage. This was a middle class movement that was well thought of and driven by a long term vision of change.

A Lazy Sunday Afternoon

It's a Holi Holiday

Marianne

Somewhere over the Rainbow

Viva Forever

Farewell Song

Summer Holiday

Top of the World

Oom Pah Pah

Classroom Teaching in India

"Every truth has four corners; As a teacher I give you one corner and it is for you to find the other three" - Confucius

The teaching profession is widely considered to lay the foundation stone for nation building.Teachers have the immense responsibility to nurture students who are capable of thinking out of the box and taking independent decisions so that they can face the toughest of life's challenges and become leaders of tomorrow.With teachers having such an immensely important role to play, it is only fit to introspect on whether our education system and specifically our classroom teaching techniques live up to expectations of the 21st century.Are traditional modes of imparting learning to students within a classroom worthy enough to be continued in the near future or do we need an urgent course correction? Has the time come to adopt a different set of tools to prepare students for the ever burgeoning competitiveness that is becoming so ingrained in our social fabric ?

Below is a list of different methods of teaching and the retention rates they produce,

1. Lecture = 5%
2. Reading  = 10%
3. Audiovisual  = 20%
4. Demonstration = 30%
5. Discussion Groups = 50%
6. Practise by doing = 75%
7. Teach others = 90%

Traditional modes of classroom teaching in India have primarily revolved around lecturing and reading with limited focus on practicals.The driving intent behind teaching has largely been to complete the ever growing curriculum instead of fostering comprehension of the subject matter.Reading out the chapters from the book line by line interspersed with answers to queries from a few inquisitive students and ultimately rounding up everything by discussing answers to the questions in the Exercise section at the end of the chapter has largely been the modus operandi of teaching in any average classroom in the country.This is finally followed up by testing the student's learning through internals,tests,exams etc. where questions are mostly formulated in straightforward and predictable ways and in fact, sometimes are just copied from the Exercise section. Answers are evaluated on the basis of whether all the points from the text have been covered or not.Sometimes even this is sacrificed due to the huge backlog of papers to be corrected, and random marks are rewarded based on superficial things such as handwriting,presentation,direct quotations from the book, quality of introduction and conclusion etc.All this leaves little room to guess that our prevalent education system lays more emphasis on raw memorization of facts and figures than on strengthening student's analytical skills,creativity and ingenuity in approaching a problem.

As most of us would have already experienced that text and lecture based teaching encourages only rote-based learning , besides offering little stimuli to capture the student's attention in the classroom.By easily falling into the trap of monologue, this style of teaching is almost unavoidably characterised by minimum student participation.In fact, our archaic modes of classroom teaching suffer from so many loopholes and drawbacks that having a detailed discussion on the topic would easily run into several pages.So leaving that aside, the question we should be asking ourselves is "Are traditional teaching styles sustainable in the long run? What are the other alternatives? And how urgently do we need to change our education system?"

With passing years, school and college curriculum is only bound to increase and entrance exams will become more competitive.If we were to continue down the existing path, teachers will find it increasingly difficult to complete the curriculum within deadline and students will be simply swamped and over-burdened with study material.There's only an extent to which memorization can work without the assistance of comprehension.The pace of study will become so fast that all the joys associated with learning will be nipped from the bud and students will become more exam-oriented as opposed to learning-oriented.

So there's enough evidence on the table to suggest that we need to start looking at other alternatives.As per the tabular data cited above, teaching others, practicals and discussions are the most effective teaching methodologies.Encompassing all these three is a newly emerging teaching strategy called Cased-based teaching  that has currently been adopted, albeit in a smaller way,  in the premier management institutions in the country.The principal hallmarks of this style are,

1. Students are divided into small groups of 5-10 people. Each of these forms a study group.
2. Students are apprised of the study material prior to the classroom session.
3. After individually going through the study material, the study group meets to further discuss the topic so that as many points can be laid on the table as possible.
4. During the classroom session, each study group puts forth their viewpoints.
5. The teacher is responsible for guiding the discussion towards a logical conclusion, while prodding students for a 360 degree analysis.
6. Most of the time discussions are open-ended and more often than not there is more than one possible solution to the problem.

Since case-based teaching is very student-centric as opposed to lecture-centric, it successfully creates a breeding ground for student participation.Under this, spoon feeding and a passive flow of information from the instructor to the student is replaced by an environment that is conducive to letting the students construct their own knowledge, challenge assumptions, expose contradictions and ultimately leading to new knowledge.During the classroom session, students are actively processing the information,instead of just absorbing the information.The results of this collaborative learning model is that we nurture quality students with a strong understanding of fundamentals and having the ability to critically appreciate a problem and it's solutions.

While case-based teaching is a good fit for social science based courses, science and maths related subjects require a blend of case-based teaching and lectures. This is so, as in the case of the latter, significant work needs to be done by the teacher on the classroom board by way of demonstrating theorems, formulae etc.Nevertheless, case-based teaching seems to be a more valuable way of utilizing time within the classroom as the focus is more on fostering comprehension and analysing the topic from all possible perspectives. Once students understand the topic, memorising becomes so much easier, probably even fun !

The fact that a paradigm shift is needed in our classroom teaching styles is more than evident.Teaching methodologies that encourage students to think independently, enables them to handle pressure and nurtures their confidence are the need of the hour.As we get surrounded by more competitive times, it's become necessary that we stem the rot in our education system that currently seems all but poised to becoming a breeding ground for mediocrity.Because, Thinkers and not Nerds is what we need from our future generations !