Rambling : my life in the past six years

I know that many people are like me – simple wandering about saying “yes” to whatever is asked. Spending most of the time dreaming what to do and suddenly a phone call reminds you that you need to go out to hangout with friends, submit your lab record or attend some meeting/function. In other words, not having a definite goal for yourselves and setting goals based on what you see around at that moment. What you are about to read is one such story – Ya, the story of myself. Read on and you might find a lot of similarities with your own life and that might bring up a smile on your face.

• In my 10th standard, I wanted to become an archaeologist – I read about the various civilizations and even visited monuments and temples to read history. I talk with Sanskrit professors about the origins of India.
• Then after seeing a big shot by the name Dr.Kathiravan in my hometown. He was a symbol of dedication, hardwork and passion. Then I wanted to become a doctor and serve the people.
• I was naturally good at drawing (thanks to mom). I attended some painting classes during my 11th standard under Mr.Sylvester Peter. He used to say me that I have natural talent and could become a very good artist one day. Coincidentally I was already winning prizes at state level competitions. So, (you know a school boy’s mindset rite?)  I wanted to become a professional artist.
• My father is a coach in my district cricket association. He taught me every nuance in fast bowling and made me a pretty good bowler. When I made it into the district team, I thought I should enter into the Indian cricket team one day.
• When I reached the later part of 11th standard, I loved every concept in Physics and made a prototype of a Reverse Osmosis plant with my classmates. I was inspired by Albert Einstein, the man synonymous with the word “Genius”. I wanted to revolutionize the world by inventing the Time machine 😛
• During my 12th standard, I wanted to be a polymath and started winning every extra-curricular activity I found in my way. My dream of getting state rank perished with that. But I was very, very happy travelling long distances and meeting new people.
• The 12th annual holidays helped me get into better contact with my brother Vivek. My brother has been winning the best employee award every Q (Quarter of a financial year) ever since he entered into Robert Bosch. He is the youngest person to get an onsite job in the HQ of Bosch in Germany. Seeing him grow, I wanted to become a Mechanical Engineer.
• Then since I was engrossed in Computer Games during the 12th holidays, my parents said that I might be naturally inclined to computers and enrolled me for BE Computer Science under Anna University, Chennai. And yeah, I did learn it with passion (like I did for every other activity :D)
• I started learning Java in my first year under one of the Assistant Professors in my department. I made a calculator using Java Swing and said to myself that “Yeah! thats it man! I am the king of Java. I will learn all the packages within a month and create a really big project in it. Thus I can get into Sun Microsystems as a Java specialist”. (Naivety ruled me :D)
• Then came the voices on Cloud Computing. I started working on Xen, read lots of Amazon white papers and made some *trivial* papers on Cloud Computing. I was working all alone then.
• Then one celestial meeting occurred, I met my best friend Ahamed Nafeez in my own hostel. He too seemed to be in a similar wavelength as myself. When I talked with him, before I could realise we were best friends already. We decided to work in Networks. We did certifications togethers, won Network engineering competitions, paper presentations, and to cap it all, we did a workshop on Network security. During those days, my dream company was Cisco and Cisco only.
• Then when I saw Android flourishing, I started hacking into android development. I was jaw-dropped on seeing the cool projects in the Android Developer Conference. I worked with my roommate Ganesh to create some cool projects involving a variety of Android technologies. We wanted to make a startup on Android Apps.
• Then I got introduced to the Bhumi Social Foundation through Manoj. At this point, you should know that my entire family is known for social service. Even I got some accolades regarding that. So I was easily influenced and I got into that completely different world. Then I decided to  get into full time social service by becoming a member of Teach For India. I have already said about the phone interview I had. But with a second thought, full time social service did not look like a good idea. So I dropped it.
• Then I got my first Wifi enabled phone Nokia E63. I used Internet in my mobile very often. When I found that browsing was too slow in wireless networks, I started working on a solution and found a problem with TCP performance.  I made a research paper on it and it will published as a proceeding in Springer LNCS in few days. I wanted to bring a change in the way Wireless Networks worked.
• Then my interest in Python began to sprout out when GSoC 2011 approached. Though I couldn’t do GSoC this year due to my brother’s marriage, I got into another Summer of Code by Umit, which was also a part of GSoC. Then I started making a few hacks in Python and now am sitting at PyCon in Pune typing out this blog at an alarming speed 😛 Now I dream of becoming an expert python hacker. 😀

To finish it off, I realize that what I am now is just the remnant of all the previous Narendrans I had been throughout my life. Sorta jack of all trades. Seeing the specialist Python Hackers around me makes me feel guilty of not having done anything significant. I have tried atleast a 100 different things in the past six years that went undocumented and unnoticed :P. Saying this, even my future is uncertain. Few years down the lane, I have no idea what I would be doing. I don’t even know if this is strange or this is a “Typical Adolescent Thinking”. I need to specialize in one field through which I can effectively serve the community. DOT.

When I was hopelessly lamenting this to my mom, she replied, “What is the highest position in your field? Something named Google rite? I don’t want you to get in there and break your head. You got placed already. Be happy for that. Oor suthify with your friends, get married in a couple of years, settle happily and speak Tamil at home. Thats enuf. And dont ever take this topic again when on phone or when at home!!”

In a nutshell : I say “Enna valka da idhu”, Mom says “Keep it simple silly!” 😀

Life Lessons : What I learnt from my 20-year experience on Earth

Though I have loads of things to blog about, am settling down with the life lessons I have learnt through my varied experiences as a son, brother, friend, student, painter, gamer, social servant, hacker, team leader and an insane thinker. The final result I got after brainstorming myself is something that is better felt than being listened to. Here is the depiction of what I figured out from my little 20-year experience.

Lesson 1 :
You can become whatever you wish to become with sheer dedication and hardwork. Be it a doctor, computer engineer, scientist, painter, musician, Anna Hazare, or Osama Bin Laden, you name it! But what matters is what you love to do.. What you are made for.. What every cell of yours is inclined to do.. What is it that you can do 24x7x365 tirelessly with complete passion. That is your destiny. Don’t waste your life trying to become someone else. Life is counted on how much you have enjoyed by being yourself.  Don’t hide your true potential just because you feel that its not upto the mark. You are already awesome 🙂

The obvious question is “How do we find what we are made for?”. Answer – No one else other than you could find it. Ask yourself and get confused a million times, you will find the right answer one day.

Lesson 2 :
My life in Chennai taught me a hell lot about relationships. Ofcourse, am learning some hard lessons even now. But one fundamental concept I noticed is that – Many people in Chennai are NOT what they seem to be. They pretend to be that “someone else” for the sake of getting accepted by the society. And thats hilarious. When you are true to yourself and to the community around you, whatever you get would be a genuine fit for you. Even if you have very few friends, you could be 100% sure that they are true to you.

In short – Don’t waste your life trying to become something. Do what you love to do, and automagically you will become the one you are destined to be. A fantastic life is guaranteed if you start living YOUR life right now and enjoy every moment.

You might think that these are the words which you find on some lame books like “You can Win” or some Share-Auto’s cover. But trust me.. This is the Ultimate Truth.

Still I have lot more to say, but for now its better if I halt with this 😛

Courtesy – The innumerable times I’ve spent time thinking about human life and to my role model who has been my inspiration since birth, my lovely lovely brother Vivek Thangarajan.

Cheers! 🙂

The Tale of One Technophile

In terms of technology and computers, I have currently decided to blog on NS2, Android and Python. I will bring in other interesting languages like LISP, Haskell, Perl later on.

Technology is fun. Though I don’t have any great desire to become a techno-geek or something,  I do read a lot on Tech stuffs. And am mad about computers and gadgets. i know am not alone. Because they really have profound impact on our lives. Don’t they?

Choice of Computer Science : It all commenced when I was doing my 12 std in High School. I was asked to make a choice of a lifetime among three streams – Computer Science, Biology and Business. After hearing all the opinions from mom, dad, anna, anni, chithappa, chithi, thatha, paati and so on (:P) I decided to settle with Mechanical Engineering in PSG. But there was one particular thing which was continually haranguing my mind. “What is it that I never get bored with?” –> “Hacking into Computers” replied my conscience, everytime. Then after a deep study into the roots of Computer Science, I fell in love with it. I wanted to learn more and more about it. And thus am into CS. So, what made effected that sudden change of mind?

I ascribe that part to the history of Computers. I thank the forefathers of computer science who have provided such a brilliant platform for the current generation of young entrepreneurs to work on. Anyone who could clearly visualize the power latent within computers and the platform available for students would easily go for computers and technology.

Take for instance, the concept of languages. We interact with the humans with languages like English, Hindi, Tamil etc. These are nothing but a product of recursive abstraction of languages, the phenomenal process which started with the introduction of Hieroglyphics in Egypt. With each level of abstraction, the depth of each word increased. And finally we ended up with beautiful languages that are in use today. Such is the evolution of computer languages. We started instructing the computers using  machine code with mere 0s and 1s. We started abstracting it to Assembly language, BASIC, procedural languages like C, Functional Languages like LISP, Object Oriented languages like Python and Java and it continues to evolve. If you ask me, this will evolve until the computers are able to perceive instructions fed in human languages like English!! Imagine instructing your computer to pXe boot to Ubuntu just by a verbal command in English. Thats going to be legendary..

And moreover computer languages too follow a grammar, similar to the grammar rules we have in our human languages. Thus programming languages are very closely related to human dialects. This closeness to reality impressed me. I swore that I would learn all these technologies and make a better platform when I pass the baton to the next generation. because thats is how civilizations occur. Thats how the world has developed over the years. That leads to ultimate glory of mankind.

And this is what made me a technophile 🙂

World is a Drama Stage

This post is about reality. The reality that you can’t become whatever you dream to become. I know it makes a negative impact, but I guarantee to have a happy ending.

This thought was inspired by the quote “The whole word is a drama stage, men and women merely actors” by Shakespeare. This has been intriguing me for long.

Where it all started? I would cite two very different instances.

1.  My grandpa wanted to study abroad. But it just stayed as his dream due to his family’s economic status. And after two generations, am gonna make his dream come true through my Masters Degree in US. Similarly, I wanted to become a doctor. Ironically, I can’t even stand someone bleeding for more than 2 seconds!! So I would entrust that dream to my son or daughter. And I have to find what my account holds for me..

2. The second is the character “Lady Gaga”. Seeing her perform on stage, I find that she is perfectly made for entertainment and absolutely nothing else. She can never become an academician even if she holds a hunger strike till death.. She has found what she is meant for, which according to me, is her greatest achievement. She is doing the best in her field.

So you just get what is written in your account, nothing more, nothing less. That’s what life is all about. Its useless to keep dreaming about becoming a celebrity or a superstar. First thing to do is to identify the role assigned to you by God. Is it a musician, dancer, architect, dramatist, singer, academician or one of million others? Until you find that role, don’t settle.. Keep hunting for that one thing you are made for. That is the reason for your existence. That is your reality. Until you find that role, you are just living someone else’s life, wearing a mask of satisfaction. Once you find it, start chasing. Don’t ever look back. Trust your intuition, karma, insight orwhatever you call that instinct. Don’t let other people’s voices drown your own precious inner voice. Just stay calm and listen to what it says and pursue the goal it renders in your mind. The more you know abt it, the more you’ll want to get it. Like any relationship, it grows better and better with time. Then one day the whole world would seem to work for you and by then you are already on top of the world. You have proved yourself to God that you did your role well. You are now called a celebrity.

Thats what happened to those two people, whom I mentioned above. My grandpa became one of the pioneers of bringing in industries to my native Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu. And on a global perspective, Lady Gaga rose from ignorance to elegance.

An aimless life is like riding a car without destination. Thus to become a successful person, we need to know our role (ie. our reason for existence) and perform it to the fullest. Once we start enjoying every moment playing that role, we slowly become dearer to God and success will follow. The ultimate secret is to “Identify what we are made for” and pursue that cause. Everything else is trivial.

The Universal Solvent

Hey ppl, this is my first blog. I have decided to blog about anything that hits my head during the apparently day-long classes in college.

Let me start off with my idea on WORLD UNITY. Is it possible or it just has place in fictions and dreams? Lets see..

          I once read India is a peace-loving country. Of course I was relishing that peace then. But once I grew up I understood that “peace” meant just a state of being. Not the state of mind.

The peace we enjoy is brought about by an obscure fear of war. People all around the world actually pretend to be at peace, but actually they are not. We are just under an illusion of peace, because of the hundreds of lives lost at the border every week. Its synonymous to what a Yoga master taught the other day. When asked what is yoga, he said that its a state of infinite freedom where we don’t have any rules. It means if we follow 1000 rules while sitting and 2000 rules while breathing, we attain infinite freedom. Nice to hear. But who wants it while the whole world is burning in terrorism. Its the same state we are in. We think we have attained peace by spending a fortune on military equipments, but we have not. And that incited this post..

Think about this.. When we were at school, when a girl had a personal fight with a guy of the same class, the whole lot of girls team up together forgetting their ego among themselves to support the girl’s cause. Scaling the same instance to a bigger scope, when two states lock horns on a petty river problem, all the religions, castes, communities in each of those states join hands to support their native state. These interstate problems become meaningless when there is a threat to the whole nation, like terrorism. When Al-Queda threatens to destroy our nation, all the states unite to fight for their country. A guy forgets his fight with his class girl, his father forgets the caste problem in his street, the state forgets the trivial interstate problems and each and every soul in the country is instilled with a single anthem “My life for my country” . Thus with a bit of logic, we could generalize that unity is brought about when different factions face a common enemy.

So are we arriving at a solution for muting wars and battles at the country borders? Ya, I believe. Once we start focusing on global problems like poverty, global warming, food production, pollution and things which left untamed could lead to the planetary devastation, there is no need for manufacturing bombs, artillery, and billion dollar tanks. Instead we can plant trees and educate children with the same money. If we are willing to die for the country, why can’t we live to save our mother earth. Once we get a global perspective on human’s lives –  terrorism, community clashes, religious misunderstandings, all these fade away as trifles in the face of death.  Thus world unity is not just a fantasy.

The World will be unified, when people start understanding the gravity of global problems and start acting.