Talk by Ms. Dayamani Barla

-This blog was originally posted on Nov 27th 2007 in my other blog-

Tuesday Nov 27th I attended an inspiring talk by Dayamani Barla, organized by AID Dallas. Before I give any opinion, let me give a brief introduction about her.

"Dayamani Barla's is an inspiring story of a tribal woman who decided to stand up and campaign for issues that continue to erase, erode and impoverish tribal societies in Jharkhand in the name of development. Dayamani, educated at the Ranchi University, has been writing articles in Hindi in regular newspapers and magazines like Prabhat Khabhar for the last ten years. Her writings powerfully articulate the exploitation faced by tribal communities, especially women. She strongly believes that by taking the voices of the tribal communities to the common public on issues of tribal women's empowerment, health, local self-governance and on Government's Tribal policies, common people can be made aware of the real situations on the ground and thus participate and influence development policies in the right direction.

She has been a powerful campaigner working shoulder-to-shoulder with the community on different issues ranging from eviction of tribals due to the Koel Karo Project, hazards of Uranium mining to forced prostitution of tribal women. A recipient of the Counter Media Award for better rural journalism(2000) and the National Foundation for India Fellowship (2004), Dayamani runs a local tea-shop for a regular living which she claims is also one of the best places to listen to the voices of the people!"

The talk lasted a little more than 2 hours. For most part of the talk, she talked about tribal people and their life. She went in detail to describe how things work there, how much these people depend on nature for most of their stuff, and how much they respect it. Then she started talking about her family and her childhood days. To me she went on way too much into detail about it. By the time she came to the interesting part where she started talking about how her life as an activist started, it was too late. But we extended the questionnaire round, where we were finally able to get a sneak preview about her life as an activist. Thanks to all the good questions being asked by the audience. I asked a simple question as to how in a state like Jharkhand, she manages to deal with bad people and their threats, for which she gave a great answer. She told us that people try to threaten her in the beginning, but when they see the so much determination on her side, they loose their spirits. She also added that she got nothing to loose so she has no fear at all, and even about being killed, she said she dies everyday, isn't that enough. I really liked the questionnaire round. The first half of the talk was like a good information, but you can get that information from any source and for that you do not need a personality like her to tell.

She seemed to be like a very determined, fearless leader and her life, struggle, protest so far tells everything about her. Fact that in spite of being born and bought up in a remote area, she managed to complete her Masters in Commerce, was really impressive.

People like her continue to inspire people around them all the time, and I am glad that I was able to meet one such person in person.

More information,

As Aid Saathi

Articles she published in Prabhat Khabar can be found here

Table For Six Billion, Please...

A mere co-incidence...I was in restroom and I started flipping pages of a magazine called The Sun, no clue whatsoever it was. I started of reading the very first article without much expectation, as I needed something to kill time. But in few minutes, I realized that this is no ordinary article...titled Table For Six Billion, Please-Judy Wicks On Her Plan To Change The World, One Restaurant At A Time...The article was posted in Sun magazine's Aug 08 issue.

Through this blog, I would like to share the article with you all about Judy Wicks, her vision and her plans. Her commitment towards safe environment, world peace, and vision for community business is just incredible. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. Reading about people like her is very inspiring and gives us hope that amidst so many wars, so many religious disparities, there are still people who DARE to think big and beyond and believe in One World One People....

Here is link to the article
Table For Six Billion, Please... Quote
I once had a dream of going into a restaurant and instead of asking for a table for two, I said, “Table for 5 billion, please.” Now it’s 6 billion and growing. That dream was a vision of a world where everyone has a place at the table, politically and economically, and enough to eat. We can accomplish this not through economic and military domination, but by communication and understanding.

Money doesn't buy Happiness

Yesterday, while I was driving back home, I listened to this short commentary by Heather Havrilesky, in All Thing Considered , NPR News on 'Money doesn't buy Happiness'. I think the narration was really impressive and what she talked made total sense.

To listen to the commentary, click the link below,
LISTEN NOW

Let me know if you found it interesting too. Thanks!!

Do you feel that too??

I am raising a question here which has been bothering my mind since a while now....what is that stops us from donating little money to charities, or just any donation, even though you feel for it, still you hesitate to donate, what is that causes such hesitation, when even you know its for a good cause, why does our mind creates so many barriers towards such noble cause, by questioning the credibility of that organization, that person, that cause, and so on...once if we are able to overcome that big suspicion,which is rare ....comes the excuse, which could be either "ooh my little donation would not do any good" or " there are other people taking care of it" or any other. All this mind exercise is for something as small as 5-10$....we spend 5 bucks in Starbucks for just a coffee and we do not think twice, we spend $25 for a evening dinner and we return home just fine, mind does not have any opposition/reaction to that, but its when its more important cause -> mind STOPS you...

I could recall a recent example, it happened like 30 mins back, when I went to Wikipedia and I again saw that Donation icon, I have been seeing that icon since few days, and every time I see, I think I should do something about it, as I use this website quite often and I should pay back for the great service it provides me...still it was only today that I overcame all the opposition forces inside me and donated like 10 bucks,,,,another example which comes to my mind is when National Public Radio(NPR) was asking for donation, I listen to it all the time, its my fav radio channel, I find it exceptionally informative, but when it comes to donation, I just ignored it. Its bothering my mind, but this mind has some opposition forces against donation.

May be slowly and slowly by thinking about it, I am trying to overcome those forces and will soon be donating something to NPR....well its just an example, but yeah consciously thinking about it might just help the CAUSE.

Trip to Michigan

Just returned from a trip to Michigan,,,,highlights of the trip include driving 19 hours each way, crossing 7 states in one GO,,,,seeing old friends after years,,,,playing cards like never before,,,surviving extremely cold weather,,,,and returning back safely with no problem whatsoever.

It turned out to be a very satisfying trip by many respects,,,

Driving 1100 miles is no fun especially in extremely cold weather, when snowfall was very much on the cards, but we took that as a doable challenge, and the rest is history now. We did see some snow for a while during our drive, but was never too bad to give us any problem. One of our friends who never saw snow before actually got way too excited. We were even pulled over by a COP but nothing happened, and were let off. There was also a moment when we almost ran out of gas and the gas signal light went off, and were out in the middle of nowhere...we had to deal with this scary phase for a while before we finally found a gas station, I think we had a very narrow scope there. We also got a chance to pass through Oklahoma,Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and of course Michigan.

Seeing old friends is always fun, and this time it was no different, for me it was interesting to see some subtle changes in them, with time. But after we all interacted for a while, we all returned to normal self,,,remembering all the funny old undergrad moments was so much fun,,, teasing each other with abandoned nick names , ex people,,, crazy moments,,,catching each other for anything which could be turned to a silly joke,,,making fun and having fun seemed like the order of the order of the day,,,we had planned for few site visits in and around Michigan but were canceled at the very last moments, party due to extremely cold weather, and partly due to the inherent laziness in all of us.

Good food was another interesting part of our trip and the credit solely goes to one of friends wife, who also was our host. Getting up late in the morning and seeing some mouth watering breakfast ready, is something which is rare for the kind of lifestyle I live now, so that was a very welcome change even if it was for few days,,,,this was also the first time in many months when I did not give a damn about fat calories,,,,

I am back to reality now, where struggle starts right from the word GO, where I have to take a major decision if I need to skip breakfast or not....

Practice of Recycling

Recently AID Dallas posted some emails emphasizing on Practice of Recycling, and it really caught my attention. Before that I was aware, but never really cared too much about it. Not that I did not wanted to do it, but used to feel lazy at the last moment, and followed more or less the easy route. But now I feel that although I represent one out of the billions of people in this world, but even one contributes something; and one plus one is more that two if you see things beyond mathematics.

Here are some of the useful links where you will get better information.

http://www.timetorecycle.com/education/How_To_Recycle.asp
http://www.green-living.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=12
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/home.cfm

The above links have been referenced from AID Dallas website on Recycling

Big Dreams!

This is part of the article published in BBC on Indian Family in rural area. Jhanjharia is a farmer in Jatheri village in Haryana state, not far from Delhi.

Somehow I felt connected when I read her dreams. I see incredible percentage of optimism in her dreams. Even she is aware of the realities and how much she has to work on to even get close to what she eventually desires. All I feel here is some positive energy and good amount of family support, both very necessary ingredients to do anything.

I do not know if she will eventually be able to become what she wants to, but she will definitely be a BETTER person than what she is; That's the power of DREAMING BIG!!

"You might not achieve impossible but you will achieve something which was initially not possible"

More worries, is there an end?

Scientists, Engineers, Research Scholars, Professors, PhD candidates, Masters students form the nucleus of our new research building called NSERL(Natural Science Engineering and Research Laboratory). Since I spend more than 60% of the time here, it makes up for an huge portion of my life.

As one would normally expect that the overall focus inside that building would be on learning, and advancing science and technology to a new level. Hmmm it's true to only some extent. The driving force here is not just learning BUT is mostly MONEY. Money dominates every discussion, every group meeting, every talk. This is quite ironic and I really feel sad to see this current state.

I really doubt if greatest scientists of all times like Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Shockley, Fermi, Edison, Plank(just to name a few) would have ever focussed on money more than their research. I think that they used to take pride in what they are doing and that was their biggest source of happiness and driving force to continue excelling. They were all very competitive and each wanting to outdo the other. Well this is all speculation from whatever little I read about them.

Here is how it works, believe me there is none you can blame. Its rare win-win model where everyone benefits. The big organizations or companies are looking to expand their R&D, and to do that in their premises could be very expensive, so they distribute their projects to different universities, where 50% of the money goes to the development of the university, portion of it goes the cost of equipments and materials required, and rest of it takes care of the salary of the students working on that project. Company, institution and students, all benefit from it big time. Its all good here, but for individual research groups to get these projects from industry is not that easy, and this demands a lot of proposal writing, lot of careful planning and being very smart in what technology you are working on.

If finding the money for the research you want to work on was easy, the focus would be totally on learning and expanding the knowledge, but the competitiveness of research grants shifts the focus totally from learning to earning. In this industry, few things sell at a time, for e.g the last decade saw an intense research activity on gate dielectrics, and there was a lot of money on that. So all started working on it, now it has shifted to organic electronics and most of the groups work on that. You might see some potential in a particular technology but if its not in line with the current areas of focus, no one will buy it. There is a grant called NSF(National Science Foundation), its a government grant and they distribute money for advancement of pure science, but such grants form less 5% of the total available.

This cut throat competition keeps everyone under tremendous pressure all the time. The professors are constantly writing proposals to maintain the flow of money, the students are trying their best to keep up their job, and industry is always in close fight with other industries. As a result you will find worried faces all around.

Established professors worried about living up to the expectations, new ones worried about expanding their research group. Some students just starting their research, worried about learning new things and making sure they do not make any mistakes, and trying to make an impression; some students close to finishing are worried about graduating and realizing so much still needs to be done, also worried about endlessly having to answer this qn ' when are you graduating'; the ones in the middle worried about not enjoying the research anymore as they realize that this is the not the project they eventually wanted, but now its too late to change. I have not even touched upon how taxing could be research in itself, and my beautiful 100 million $ research building is already under piles and piles of worries.

Research is another part which can be a huge source of worry in itself, as most of the times things do not go as planned. Because of so much emphasis on quick results, the basic approach to solving a problem is the engineering approach, or rather hit and trial based on previous knowledge and things we understand, wait wait wait, rather we think we understand. Well the science part plays its role, of course, but thats not the only way we approach to problems here.

Well I have already changed theme of this blog from money to worries as I kept writing, the title has already been changed from The World around me to More worries, is there an end? so I better stop here before I travel to another planet. Also the cafe I am at, is about to close.

Well most of the stuff that happens in this world gets related to money somehow, and this was no different.

The Cat that never was mine...

Shadow and Striker, two beautiful cats were a part of our house. I was never a cat person, so my interaction to them was minimal and was mostly confined to feeding them with water/food when necessary. My opinion about cats has already changed in these two years. I never knew such a peaceful animal like cats could actually exist. Striker was more of a shy one and would never come to anyone, except my landlady.

Few days back, when I was home, Striker came to me and wanted to say something, that was quite unusual, but there was no way I would understand what she wanted. I checked her water and food, and things were in place. I was feeling tired and suspecting nothing, I went to bed.

The next morning, Striker was found dead in the living room. I really don't know what triggered her downfall, was it old age??? or some sort of illness??

Too many thoughts dominated my mind for the next few days....and there is one lesson I learned for sure is that never try to ignore things which seem unusual, as they are unusual for a reason....

I was thinking, something which was so alive few hours back is gone to a world nobody understands, millions of body parts which work and communicate with other so perfectly, STOP all of a sudden and that too so perfectly...well I am 30 now, and having experienced so much I thought I totally understand the concept of death, but Striker made me realize once more that how little I or rather we understand concepts as mysterious as Death////

Well it was a very strange experience for me, and I never expected that I would miss a cat which I thought was never mine.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

-Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952

Make a Difference

http://www.makeadifferencemovie.com/

This is a wonderfully created short film by Mary and Craig Reynolds. Kudos to them for bringing out such an important message so beautifully and so simply.

Indian Ocean Music

'Indian Ocean' my all time favorite music band will be performing LIVE in Dallas on Nov 11^th 2007 at SMU campus in Dallas. This will be my 4^th time I will listen them live. I can't wait to see them again and feel so excited about it. Last time I had to drive all the way to Austin. Every time it has been a experience in itself. I am usually not a very big fan of Dallas but when something like this happens I feel really grateful. My room-mate in my undergrad days introduced me to their music 7 years back and since then there has been no stopping. They do not play the contemporary form of Indian music but are more innovative and quite unique in their style. It's hard to describe what Genre they fall into, but they always manage to strike amazing chord with western audience (more of the ROCK side). They use a lot of instruments and not too much vocal, and as they say music has its own language.

All I know is that in the last 3 times I saw them perform live, I did not see any disappointed face, if was in fact the opposite.

Wikipedia did a very good job in explaining their music and the band in general, here is the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_(band)

Below is their official site and you might get a preview of their music, by going to Albums/Album Name http://indianoceanmusic.com/

Below is the information about the upcoming concert in Dallas http://www.meraticket.com/contents/moviedetails.asp?eventId=790

Journey to Greatness

Being 2^nd blog makes me feel better. What am I going to talk here makes me vulnerable again.

What is GREATNESS????? We often confuse ourselves greatness with success. I beg to differ here. Well there can be a whole new debate on how we define success, I would prefer not to get deep into that and will stick to the conventional definition of Success, which is achieving your intended goal whatever you aimed for, be it professional or spiritual. GREATNESS?????…hmmm…I believe someone is GREAT who commands RESPECT from his peers for his intentions and service…someone who is appreciated for his actions from everyone.…someone, who gives sense of WOW and IMPOSSIBILITY when you hear about his actions. All I am stressing in this paragraph is that it takes more than just talent to get to the level of greatness compared to being successful. Before confusing you all, well let me get to the real point I am trying to make.

Well here I will devote the next few lines to my very close friend.

He has been making headlines back home in India and has been selected among the top 8 people in the whole nation as a potential leader to LEAD INDIA. Lead India is an initiative taken by a leading newspaper to tap young people who have the immense potential, burning desire and the extra-ordinary strength to take a nation as huge as India to another level but they do not have any means (neither money nor platform)to do that. In a country as big as India, being among the 8 is no ordinary FEAT (while I was writing this he was among 24). The selection process is highly rigorous and involves scrutiny of every action, every intention and every thought/vision of yours.

My friend, who still has a very long way to go, but is surely on the right track to what I call ‘journey to greatness’. I feel lucky enough to witness all this and see what it takes to get there. You get pumped up when you read a good book about someone great in history, but we tend to assume that ‘Oh that person was extra-ordinary’. One thing I realized here for sure is that you do not have to be extremely extra-ordinary to achieve greatness. All you need is realization of simple facts and their application in right earnest. But again that’s what makes your GREAT as application of those simple facts is not that simple. If I study my friend very closely and his work since last 7-8 years, I can clearly think of few points which might justify where he is now.

One thing which has amazed me is his approach and focus on things which he really likes. He never tried to do too many things at the same time ‘FOCUS, FOCUS and FOCUS -leads to everything’ this mantra was realized by him long time back. He was matured enough even in early twenties to realize that materialistic pleasures are not very long lasting so why should we pay such a heavy price for it. Two things that are so limited in this world are TIME and RESOURCES. So focusing effort on one thing certainly helps in making best use of time and resources. The sooner you apply it, the sooner you get there. I am still struggling with it, I have tried hard to improve over the years, but I guess it’s very easy said than done.

Another distinct quality which I really admire in him is his reading habit. He always had this appetite for reading books of great/noble leaders/philosophers and business stuff as well. Having the right intension is one thing and its application totally different. Application of anything requires first understanding the problem and then suggesting a solution; so stronger the knowledge database, the probability of doing better becomes more. Nothing can be built without the strong foundation of KNOWLEDGE. I guess reading good books goes a long way in developing your thought process. Its not just him but I have noticed this in other people as well who are good readers, have done much better overall.

Another quality I think makes someone extra-ordinary is his patience/perseverance. Roads are not smooth most of the time, and I think at that moment believing in oneself becomes so very important. My friend of today is the constant effort he has put towards it since 7-8 years, brick by brick. By this I remember a very interesting quote, I don’t really recall who said it (courtesy-> my as always poor memory). “Most people overestimate what they can do in a year, but underestimate what they can do in ten years”.

He has tons of other extra-ordinary qualities but I will keep this blog limited to the ones I admire the most. I really liked the interview he gave to TOI few weeks back and here is the link: http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA3LzEwLzEyI0FyMDAyMDI=&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

He will now participate in televised multi-episode national debate with 7 other candidates from all over India. That should be interesting.

Kudos to the contest organizers BIG TIME, to me they are the REAL WINNERS, it’s a great idea, its really creating a very positive, encouraging vibe all across India and its good to see people who have always been on the neglected side, being shown the appreciation they deserve so much. I think in the long run it will help young people living in confused state of mind, who want to GIVE BACK, but they do not see much hope to come up and make a difference by contributing something. Way to go man! The success of this Lead India will encourage media to organize more such events in future and to think beyond Singing and Dancing as the only talent search.

I wish him ‘Best of Luck’

Sailing Through

This being my first BLOG ever, I am not sure ‘what to express’ and after thinking deep down and pondering about things dominating on in my mind these days, next natural question pops up which is ‘how to express’. I do not want to even think about 'why to express'

Let’s see!

Mind is usually dominated by incidents or events that tend to be different and very likely important, that have happened or about to happen. On personal front I could right now think of 2 such events. One such event is my passing of Doctoral Proposal Defense. The other one needs another BLOG so I will preserve that thoughts for a later appropriate time.

One of my friends asked a very good question recently or she rather expressed her astonishment ‘What it takes to do a PhD in Engineering?’ Well I guess it’s not just with PhD but with anything else in life, you take a decision and you all throughout you back up or defend that decision. You keep living that decision. This is more obvious in things that stretch over a long period of time. Its always a tough call when you are about to take that decision, since it involves almost 5 years of your life and that is roughly 5-10% of your total life. It involves a deep understanding of your inclinations and interests. Once you are in it, there is no way out, so very careful planning of your priorities is so important. The same thought process and planning involves even for decisions like marriage and children. I will not go deep into that.

I took this decision almost like 4 years back and I am at a stage now, that I am living my decision. A lot of things have changed in these 4 years, my thought process has changed, my interests have changed, my priorities have changed, and so on. Working on PhD is painstaking task, and it’s not fun all the time no matter how much you like it. But even though its not obvious, there is passion somewhere deep down, and that’s what keeps you going.

It gives me a sense of pride that I have gone through all of this and inching closer to my GOAL with every day. Passing my Proposal Defense Exam was one such landmark moment. I was not really worried about the result as I knew that in the end I will gain. I told myself, If I pass, that will boast my confidence and if I fail, that will open my eyes to areas I need to work on.

Thankfully I came up with a good presentation, was confident on that day. I must admit I was not able to answer 2-3 questions, which till today is bothering me (being a perfectionist doesn’t help) but I emailed the answers to the committee members and was a bit relief.

Looking to keep sailing through, till I reach the shore, its close, the weather is getting worse, but that’s what kicks me ON!!!

-The maverick in me